


Unravel Unwind

by lilylunastardust



Category: Brittana - Fandom, Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilylunastardust/pseuds/lilylunastardust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brittany S. Pierce wakes up in a world very different from the one she remembers; a world that is a whole lot darker and filled with significantly less fairies. This is a perspective work chronicling Brittany's struggles to understand, cope with, and ultimately find a way live when all she's ever known is challenged.</p><p>Originally started pre-viewing of Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" but works as a non-canon sort of precursor to that world.</p><p>This is not a happy piece, although there are moments. It is also very open to interpretation and prone to confusion (it is Brittany after all). There will be a non-con/rape moment but it is not remotely described in explicit detail. A warning will be posted before that chapter.</p><p>Title comes from a Spring Standard's song of the same name which inspired the piece. Link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po61gV8htMM</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It feels like my arm is being ripped out. I can’t feel my fingers. Something is pressing on them, crunching the knuckles together. It hurts.

“Stop!” I yell. “I need that arm. I won’t be able to do proper port-de-bras if you take it with you!”

I can’t hear anything. I don’t think anything is in my ears; maybe my mouth is stuck. My throat does feel gunky. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that marshmallow but it was so sweet. I’ll try my mouth again.

Still nothing but I can feel the marshmallow coming back up. I stop to bend over and cough it out and feel the pinch on my fingers increase. My coughing just gets worse. Why is it so bad? I only had one marshmallow. Maybe I’m allergic. My cat’s allergic to spinach after all.

The yanking is getting worse and now I think I can hear something gargling. It’s loud and makes my head spin. If I follow the pulling the pain lessens. So I do.

I don’t know what’s going on and it scares

_her. She rubs her thumb along the source of the pressure and it is soft like flesh, another hand. Brittany blinks trying to open her eyes but they keep fluttering shut. Even inside her eyelids everything is cloudy and way too bright. She takes a moment to gather what she can of her surroundings._

_Another hand is leading her. Someone is taking her somewhere but she has no clue where. Now that she thinks about it, she doesn’t know where she came from either. She might have been petting her cat or swinging or a million other things. Everything she remembers is out of order._

_It smells of smoke and dust. When she breathes in it tastes bitter and stings. Brittany learned about this once in school._

I’m supposed to stop, drop, and roll, right?

_But the pulling won’t let her so she keeps her eyes tight and lets her toes lead the way. Leaping across the floor to a growing symphony of chaos. She thinks she can make out what the pulling is saying._

“Hurry! I know this is scary. I’ll explain. But you have to hurry! Hurry or we’ll die!”

_So she keeps on dancing through the darkness._

* * *

 

**Memory #1:**

I’m really nervous today. It’s a strange feeling. Usually I am _carefree_ (as my mother calls it). But it’s the first day of high school and I think I put my ponytail in too tight because my forehead is sore. I won’t let anyone know I’m nervous though. Just strut in there like I own the place right? My mother also says I am very charming and have a certain grace that makes me easy to love. Hopefully she’s right.

I liked the outfit I picked out this morning but now it feels so childish. I always feel childish. People talk to me that way, like I might break something, or I might break myself. The pink dinosaur tank top and matching bow in my hair is probably not going to help that. It’s high school and I really want someone to believe me for once.

I miss Lord Tubbington. He always knows how to cheer me up.

“Okay, big breath, now open the doors. Just get to your locker in one piece and you can have a chocolate graham cracker as a reward.”

Ouch!

“Hey blondie, keep your head up." 

Great. Three seconds in and I’ve already run in to someone. I look up to see who I’ll have to avoid for the rest of my life.

Wow, she’s so pretty. Like the prettiest thing I have ever seen. That sounds like a stupid thing to say but I won’t take it back because it’s true. She’s so pretty she feels safe. I smile because I can’t help myself. When she smiles back I almost want to cry because it felt so real I could feel it all the way to my green painted toenails.

And then I do start to cry. Ugly crying with all the gasping and pink-faced urgency that comes with knowing I’ve found something special then proceeded to destroy it by running into it. All this in less then a minute. The feeling of doom, failure, and my constant stupidity comes sweeping up and I can’t stop it.

But the girl doesn’t run away. She looks afraid though, and embarrassed. She seems more innocent than me for a moment. A lost child who doesn’t know what to do, but she quickly restores her stoic beauty and grabs my arm, yanking me back through the doors. We start running together along the football field further and further until we reach the edge of the school property.

My arm is throbbing.

She sits me down and starts to rub circles into my back. It’s comforting and familiar. My mom does this too but it’s so much more when pretty girl’s fingers are the ones loosening the muscles. She doesn’t say anything, just lets me ugly until it hiccups and fades. We’ve already missed our first class by the time I’m done.

“Santana. That’s my name. Figured you should know since I just watched snot come out of your face.”

I blush, wiping my nose off on my arm and reaching my hand out to shake hers.

“Brittany. Brittany S. Pierce. No relation to Britney Spears.”

Santana does a double take at the snot smear on my arm but she doesn’t grimace. Instead the left corner of her lip quirks up into an odd sort of smile and she gives me her hand. 

“You’re cute Brittany, so I think that means we should be friends. Also, we’re both pretty badass so we should try out for the Cheerios. Have you heard of them? They are McKinley’s cheerleading team. They win Nationals, like, every year and wear really hot red skirts and shit. If we want any shot in hell at being cool around here we gotz to get in with them. But we have to work at it cause I heard the coach is a total bitch.”

Wow. Santana’s so quick to honesty. I flinch a little at how fast she moves and her easy use of swear words. My mom told me that was something only bad girls do but I’ve always wanted to try and Santana is doing it so it can’t be that bad.

“Yah. I’d love that. I mean, yah, I’d fu..fucking love that.”

Santana giggles so I giggle. I want to hug her so badly so I do. I freeze a little because mom always told me I was too fast to trust people and not everyone is okay with such quick contact. I’m suddenly worried I’ve freaked Santana, my only real friend, out. But I feel her wrap her arms around me and sigh, her chin resting on my shoulder.

Another stupid thought comes to my head but it’s also true so I let myself think it. I really like hugging Santana. It feels so safe it’s pretty.

Suddenly Santana doesn’t feel so soft and warm. I let go to look and her eyes are wide, mouth slightly parted. She’s looking at something over my shoulder. I’m really scared to look but I slowly turn around.

A couple of feet away there is a faint yellow glowing, hard to make out in the sunlight. Before I can ask what it is, the glowing moves closer.

I squint, trying to make out the details and when I do I almost fall over on top of Santana.

“Fairy,” I whisper.

“Shut the fuck up. No. It can’t be.”

I’m still really scared but I slowly reach my hand out towards it. The glowing, or fairy, floats down and settles on my fingertips. The moment it lands there is this whoosh of something I can’t describe—other than as happiness—through my skin. The fairy jumps to Santana and suddenly we are lying on the grass laughing uncontrollably.

We completely miss the fairy fly off but it’s okay because Santana links her pinky finger with mine and that’s even better. 

* * *

 

_It’s so so cold now and Brittany’s bare toes are sticking to the frost on the uneven streets. The fire shimmers a contrastingly warm silhouette behind her. Brittany and the stranger pulling her rush through the forming crowd, moving with unnatural grace given the circumstances. Once Brittany, still blind, senses they are in emptiness, they slow down. She rubs the sooty water from her eyes and peeks them open as much as they will allow._

The pulling looks like Barbie if she were a man. Maybe Barbie is a man. I don’t know, I’ve never asked, but he’s beautiful in an oddly delicate sort of way. I don’t think he wants to be delicate though. He looks scared of delicate.

“Now Brittany, that’s your name right? That’s what I saw on the clipboard by your bed. Brittany, I know you must be frightened. Everything was confusing for me at first too. I had no idea who or what or where or anything that I was. I promise I’ll help you figure it out. I’ll explain once we get to a safe place. I just want you to know that everything is going to be okay. Well, not okay. But better. We are working on better. I need you to keep calm and follow me. Can you do that?”

He makes no sense but I think I trust him anyways. Mom did always say I trusted too soon.

I softly nod and ask, “Do you like ‘him’? I don’t want to call you a boy in my head if you don’t want to be.”

He looks at me in that perplexed way everyone has always looked at me. Everyone except Santana. Where is she?

“Oh no! I have to go back! My Santana’s still wherever we were. I can’t let the dragons get her.”

I can tell I’m getting frantic because Barbie has his hands on my shoulders to steady me.

_Brittany is unable to comprehend anything. All she can sense is tidal waves of fear and self-hate crashing into her. How could she have forgotten Santana?! In her panic she starts to cough again, hacking up bits of blackened phlegm into her hands. Brittany wipes it off on her lap, staining the strange white shift dress she has on. She falls to the ground weeping a dry sorrow that she had not known her body could produce. Like all the good things in the world have suddenly been evaporated alongside the water in Brittany’s tears. It’s enormous and monsterous. It’s supernatural, this sadness._

“Santana’s fine. She’s fine. I promise you. Nothing can hurt her. I will show you. We need to get somewhere safe and I will show you.”

_Barbie’s panicking now too. His hands fumble trying to pull Brittany up and keep them moving into the security of the night. His fear does not worsen Brittany’s, but eases it. Now he feels less like Barbie and more like Bambi. Brittany wants to hold his hand and make everything all right again. So her dry sobs stop and she can breathe. The first clean breath she’s had since this adventure started._

“It’s okay Bambi, I’ll be your mommy. I’ll be good and go with you. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

My voice sounds scratchy and off but I think he understands. I watch as he brushes his knees off and adjusts his hair. He’s a new person. I don’t know either of them though.

“My name is Kurt, and yes, I like ‘him.’”

He looks at me so sadly I think about crying again but I remember my promise. I have to take care of him so he can take care of me. I take his hand in mine and we start to walk again, weaving behind dimly lit buildings. I try not to pay attention to the outside because I still don’t understand and it makes me dizzy. It’s a very long time and I’m very tired when we finally get to this run-down little brick house. All the windows have black curtains in them and it looks haunted. I just know ghosts are going to follow me.

Kurt looks around than knocks on the door. A hushed voice from inside says, “Let’s run away, and don’t ever look back.”

“You were only waiting for this moment to be free.” Kurt whispers in return.

The door cracks open and we sneak inside. It doesn’t look so haunted inside because there is light everywhere. The voice that lets us in wrenches Kurt away from me and I’m almost upset but then I see how tightly they are hugging. They are afraid to let go because they’ll fall away in the darkness. That’s why the house is filled with so much sunshine.

When the voice opens his eyes he sees me and slowly lets go of Kurt. He runs his hand through his hair, which is so fluffy it looks delicious, like broccoli. I’m really hungry now but he’s holding out his hand for me to take.

“I’m Blaine. It’s nice to meet you Brittany." 

“How does everyone know my name? I’m not really famous you know. She just stole mine.”

Blaine’s hand slowly drops to his side. “Umm. Kurt and I will get to that in a bit. Right now you must be exhausted and famished. Help yourself to something in the kitchen." 

I don’t really know what those big words Blaine used mean but he said kitchen and I’m starving. As I dig through the almost empty cabinets to find a box of Lucky Charms I can hear them whisper in the background.

“I’m so glad you’re okay. I hate the nights you’re out and I’m on home base duty.”

“I know. I feel the same way when it’s the other way around, but we agreed to do this.”

“Sometimes I wonder why we did. But I understand.”

“Have any of the others returned yet?”

“No. You and your rescue are first. I hope they are okay. Especially Mercedes. She’s been lashing out her anger more than usual these days. I’m worried she’ll do something rash.”

“She deserves to be angry. We all do, but especially Mercedes.”

“I know. It doesn’t stop me from being frightened for her though.  Umm…your rescue, Brittany, was she disconnected okay? She seems a little more out of it than past rescues have been.”

“I’m pretty sure I retracted the electro-pins slowly enough as not to damage and I don’t think I accidentally pushed anything on the computer connected to the SynSynÒ so no impulses should have misfired. Her catheters were a little tricky though. She had some severely under-trained intern for a nurse. But that should only leave bruising. I don’t know. Maybe she’s just like that?”

“Or maybe they just fucked her up so badly she can’t even…”

“Hush. She can probably hear us. Let’s just wait quietly for the others.”

I stop eating the Lucky Charms from the box for a moment to look down at myself. I’m barefoot and dirty; my hair has mostly fallen out of the loose braid it was in earlier. There are gentle purple spots on the insides of my elbows, tender to the touch. Kurt was right I did bruise. I don’t even know what he’s right about. How did I get these bruises? What are catheters? It sounds like a toy Lord Tubbington would like. Oh no I forgot about him too! Both him and Santana are missing and I have to go find them but I can’t.

_Kurt and Blaine won’t let Brittany leave. She was taken from one flame into another. She’s burning up but has nothing left to give, only ash. Such desperation magnifies the helplessness. If only she knew something. But Brittany is so confused. Usually when she is confused she has seen something beautiful that no one else will understand. Like a fairy, or a nymph, or that one time she swam in the ocean with a mermaid child during her family vacation. No one believes her and so she doubts herself, but in the end she trusts in the joy that is hers alone. Special not “special” like the kids whisper behind her back. The same kids that pretend to love her. That’s confusing. But this confusing is more like madness. It is scary and alone and Brittany doesn’t think she’ll ever want to remember it but she already knows she can’t forget._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Rape/Non-Con
> 
> The scene is not remotely graphic and is included not to create an easy dramatic point (I hate when sexual violence gets used cheaply like that). It was my way of acknowledging and accounting for an incredibly problematic throwaway line used in canon for laughs.
> 
> If you wish or need to skip it just cut to the next memory after the break line where the rape moment is alluded to but not actually happening, or cut to after the reality break line where it's not mentioned at all.

_Dear Santana,_

_It’s my second day at cheerleading camp and I already miss you like a camel misses sandcastles. I miss you more than Lord Tubbington. I made him a bracelet during break today. Do you think he will like it? It’s purple, his favorite color._

_I’m still really sad that you had to spend the summer with your abuela. I know you love her though so it’s okay. I’m sure she’s sad because she lost her abuelo so it’s good you are there. I would want you there if I was sad. You are always there when I am sad._

_Have I told you how special you are? Because you are. Always remember that. I know you sometimes feel lonely and scared (don’t worry I won’t tell anyone). You want everyone to know you are strong but you don’t think you are. You are strong, but it’s okay to cry too Santana. I can be your teddy bear if you need one. I’d like to be there for you like you are for me. I love you. I love you because you know me and you listen and you’ve seen magical things with me and you believe. I know you want to be angry to protect yourself and it makes other people run away. I understand you like you understand me. That’s why we are such best best best friends. We should be princesses together until we are grey and wrinkly._

_I just wanted to tell you because I don’t think people tell you enough._

_Love your butterfly,_

_Brittany S. Pierce (no relation to the name thief, Britney Spears)_

_P.S. One of the coaches at camp told me I could choreograph a routine for the final performance. I am so excited! I have to show you when I get home!_

 

I quickly finish my letter to Santana before lights out gets called. I turn off my flashlight but I can’t sleep, I’m so giddy about making my own cheerleading piece! I love cheerleading. People like me when I’m cheerleading and I make them happy. I love making people happy when I’m making myself happy. It’s a double win like double stuffed Oreos! I feel proud of myself. My stomach is so bubbly and I’m giggling to myself. I’m glad I’m in my own tent otherwise I’d keep people up and people don’t like to be kept up, they get super grumpy. When people are grumpy they are quick to ignore me or laugh. They don’t think I notice but I do. I try to tell myself I’m smarter than they think I am. Santana is the smartest person I know, ten times smarter than Mr. Schuester, who I think might be dumber than me sometimes. She says I’m smart. That I see things in a way other people can’t like a special kind of smartness. I want to believe her but it’s hard.

I stop thinking for a second because I hear a crackling noise inside my tent. I sit up to look around but it seems okay so I lie back down and am about to shut my eyes when I see a fuzziness in the corner across from me. I blink hoping that will clear my vision but it doesn’t. Slowly the fuzziness comes into focus and there is someone standing there staring at me. The air must have been sucked out of the tent because I feel like I’m pressed against the end of a vacuum cleaner. It looks like a middle-aged man but he doesn’t look human, more like an alien I’ve seen on television. His skin tone is uneven and has a bluish-grey sheen to it and his eyes are pure white. I want to say something, to tell him he’s scaring me and I need him to leave. My mouth doesn’t work though. My brain’s fuzzy again and I can’t get it to my mouth.

He bends down by my sleeping bag and I want to run but my limbs won’t move. This is scarier than losing my words. I often lose my words, but my legs always do what I say. Why can’t I do anything?

He reaches his hand out to touch my face. It half feels like it goes right through me. He goes to place his other hand on my thigh.

I stop thinking completely.

  

When I start thinking again the alien is still touching me. His part ghost hands make me shiver all over but I don’t want to. I hurt. I’m trying to stop thinking again. Than suddenly as he appeared, the blue-grey man makes a popping noise and vanishes. I can still feel his fingertips dipping low along my hips, even though I am sure now that he is gone. I don’t know if he will come back but no one will believe me and I don’t know what to do so I just go to sleep.

* * *

 

**Memory #3:**

I’m sitting on Santana’s bed while she paces back and forth, yelling in Spanish. She stops, turns, gets down on the bed and gives me the hardest hug.

Switching to United Statesish, “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. You did not deserve this, no one does, but especially not you. I’m so so sorry I wasn’t there. I should have been there, abuela be damned. You needed me and I wasn’t there. But you aren’t going to be alone now. I will never again let anybody hurt you. Not if I can fucking help it.”

I just nod into her shoulder. I’m past crying. I like that her shoulder and arms feel solid, so unlike the alien’s.

“I wish I could find out who the fucker is and slit his throat open. Ah but I’d only do that after I take his balls off with a rusty cheese grater. And even that would be far too kind. I should really…..Oh. I’m sorry again. This can’t be helping you. I’m making this about my revenge, not what you need." 

Santana looks at me and swipes her thumb under my eye, brushing away a tear. I thought I was past crying. I was wrong. Again. But Santana’s crying too and I’ve never seen her cry so maybe it’s okay.

“I want to teach you so you can be in control. So that no one can ever steal this from you again. If they try you’ll break them, or I will. What you experienced was not sex. Do you understand that? Real sex, not like health book sex, can be nice if you want it to be, and you can have the power. You should never be made to feel weak.”

“You’ve had sex?”

“Yah. A couple months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was important.” 

“But we share everything.”

“I’m sharing now.” Santana shrugged. The left corner of her lips quirk up again in her signature smile, but her eyes look sad. 

“With who?”

“That Puck guy.”

We both stare for a moment then start laughing. This is how we spend the rest of the night, both of us quietly crying while Santana runs her fingers through my hair, or giggling as she tells me all about real sex.

* * *

 

This is awkward; the three of us just sitting here as if at a party that no one showed up to. My parties are never boring. Tons of people come but I think they are just here for my mom’s alcohol. I don’t like alcohol. It makes my head even fuzzier. I drink anyways though because I want people to like me. And even if I say things that no one understands, I think they think I’m funny and they smile. I like that, it’s more bubbly than my drink.

Kurt and Blaine are holding hands, staring at their laps. I’m just eating the charms out of my cereal. Maybe I should say something? If I am good at making people smile I should try. Kurt and Blaine look like they haven’t smiled in as long as they’ve known anything.

“Maybe if we drink some champagne, we’ll get giggly and my pixie friends will show up. They get drunk off the sound of laughter you know. Maybe a pixie could cheer you up.”

I’m not sure if they heard me because they barely even blink. I couldn’t even do that right.

“I’m sorry Brittany. We’re just really worried about our friends. It’s been over an hour since our scheduled meeting time and they still aren’t here.” Kurt says.

“That’s fine. I’m waiting for my friends too. You promised you’d tell me where they are?”

“I will, we will. We just want to wait until everyone is here. Explain everything at once. Plus it’s hard to think when we’re so worried."

I just shrug. Kurt makes sense but it’s not fair. I don’t like not knowing things. Like noises in the dark. I just want to know where Santana and Lord Tubbington are. Santana would hold my hand like Blaine’s holding Kurt’s and the tightness in my chest would go away.

We wait another eternity before we hear a knock on the door. Blaine and Kurt rush to the door and Blaine whispers something again. They open the door and five people shuffle in.

I was wrong to think they never smiled. The moment the door closes everyone is hugging and something like laughing, but without any noise. Now I am the only one who is awkward, sitting alone picking at a hole in the couch. Eventually they all come back to me, kind of.

_Brittany senses the mood has shifted. These people do not live in a world of subtleties; the faces give away the tension. Blaine names off all the strangers: a Mercedes, Wes, David, and a Sugar. Which is such a strange name for a human Brittany thinks. She once met a house elf named Nutmeg. Perhaps Sugar is an elf? This would be comforting for Brittany, someone she can believe. Not that she doesn’t believe Kurt and Blaine, but there is a difference between belief in magic—something grandiose outside yourself—and belief in people. People are barely controlled disorder. They are poetry of movement, a clichéd mess of beautiful and dangerous._  
  
This Sugar is chatting non-stop at this quiet boy I think they called Sam. He stares into space like I do sometimes and his eyes look as confused as I am so maybe he can be my friend. It’s much better to be alone together than to just be alone. I taught Santana that.

Blaine quiets her and grabs Kurt’s hand, squeezing tight. Now I know why Kurt accidentally hurt my hand before; he learned that security from Blaine.

Kurt starts, “Okay. I know some of you are very confused right now. It’s okay to be scared. I’m going to try my best to explain. I ask that you please not interrupt until I am finished. Then I will answer any questions I can. Honestly, there are many I cannot. Sugar, Sam, Brittany, you are new here so I am going to press that the most important thing is: no matter what you hear, or how unbelievable it sounds, or how frightened you are, you tell absolutely no one anything. We want all of us to be safe. Secrets keep us safe now, even though they once destroyed us.

Easy stuff first. Living arrangements. Brittany, you will be living with Blaine and I. We have two separate houses across town but we are almost always together so we just switch between places when one starts to seem a little suspicious. Sam, you will be living with Mercedes about a mile away from here. Sugar, you can live in either Wes’ apartment or with David and the rest of the Warblers at their house in a neighboring city. Whichever option feels more comfortable for you. For the first 4 months you guys will have an adjustment period where we will take care of your basic needs like food and clothing. We’ll also help you figure out how to make money yourselves, as well as navigate the city of New Lima. After 6 months you can decide if you want to go your own way or if you wish to join our cause, which I will be getting to.”

Kurt looks at Blaine then Mercedes looking for support. It makes my hands shake. If just Kurt talking to us scares him, do I really want to hear it?

He takes a big breath, “I’m not exactly sure what each of you remembers of your lives up until now. From the documents I was able to scavenge, it seems like happy things. But all that, all those happy memories, are….shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit Shit. I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

Blaine grabs Kurt’s hands with both of his and kisses him so softly on the cheek it’s like a lamb kiss.

“It’s okay hun. We can take turns. This is always hard on all of us. I’ll take over. Just relax.”

Blaine sounds so confident, but his voice gives it away.

“What Kurt is trying to say is…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Memory #4:**

“What I’m trying to say is, I think we should try it. You know, like um, uh, have sex. The two of us. I, mean if you want us to. Only if you really want it. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t want to do anything you don’t so, so like…”

Santana is stuttering, it’s cute how suddenly awkward she is when she’s trying to be honest. Santana is never nervous out loud. I usually have to use my psychic powers to find it. We can talk in our heads. We discovered this when school started. Like we can just look at each other and hear each other without moving our mouths. It’s nice. Santana can interpret for me like that one lady does for the kid in my history class who’s Deaf.

“And we can do what you what you want and everything. Err, sexually speaking. I’m not picky. I just want to make you feel, uh. I just want to make you feel good. And I think I want to just try. You know, just because. See what all the fuss is about. Right? Maybe if we practice on each other we’ll be better with they guys. I don’t know adventure, or something? Brittany please say something, I’m rambling and I’m about three seconds away from speaking in Spanish because I sound like a complete idiot.”

“It’s okay Santana. I want to try sex with you too. I almost had girl sex with Hayley last month but her dad walked in on us. He was really upset. I’m not allowed over there anymore.”

Santana’s face drops, but I don’t mention it. She doesn’t like it when I predict her emotions. She doesn’t like emotions in general and right now her head is full of them.

“I like it when we make-out. It feels really nice. And I’ve made out with a lot of people so that means you’re extra nice. I love you Santana; I want you happy. I also want me happy. Maybe sex will add to both. Though I think we are happy without it right? I am with you now.” 

Santana’s looking at me with her big eyes right now. Those are the eyes she uses when she wants me to read her mind. She’s saying, “I am happy with you now too. I want to keep you happy. I won’t tell you I love you but know that I do. I’m just scared I’ll like this too much. That I love you too much. Do you understand?”

I do. I promise her in my own head that I won’t say anything out loud. If she’s too frightened to speak, I won’t take the responsibility of breaking her secret for her.

Santana speaks again, delicately, “So, we’ll just see where this takes us then?” 

Her voice picks up courage, “We have to talk to each other the entire time though. Promise me. I won’t feel okay if we don’t make sure we both like where this is going. Also, if I’m going to keep being honest, I’m not going to talk about this afterwards. Don’t ask me to. It doesn’t mean anything; I just know I won’t be able to do it.”

I know what she means but I don’t really understand why she is so worried. If only she could see herself how I see her. My feelings always get the best of me. I’m like when you fall on the sidewalk and scrape your knee. Everything’s all bloody and the street gets stuck in your skin and if you don’t wash it out your knee gets red and sore and gross liquid comes out trying to push the street away. It’s so exposed. Santana is strong and brave, conquering the world covered in 50 layers of knee-pads. Sometimes I wish I was like her, tough and impenetrable. Sometimes I wish Santana was like me. She can’t bend her knees without some vulnerability. I wish she knew I was safe. I will do my best to make her feel safe this afternoon.

I simply nod.

Santana comes and sits down on my bed. She’s only a couple of inches down, but it feels like 5 feet. I move towards her and place my hand on her cheek. She is so cold. After a minute of this she finally looks up and I swear I see a flash of blue across her deep brown eyes. Perhaps it’s a spark of bravery. She breathes a ghost breath and kisses me.

I remember our first kiss still, even after so many have followed. It was my initiative that time. It was so hot that week and the A/C at my house was out so I was at her place. We were eating ice-cream in her kitchen and Santana had a little on her lip so I just leaned over and kissed it off. It seemed like the easy answer at the time plus it was just like all those cheesy romance books I read. Santana did nothing and I ran back home to the heat. I didn’t know what I did that was wrong, but I know I should have asked first. Santana taught me that. Always, always ask. I had forgotten and I was so upset my mother couldn’t get me out of my bedroom for two days. But Santana forgave me, and the next time she kissed me, but she asked first.

Santana and I take turns slowly undressing each other. Our fingers catch, tangling in brightly colored bra-straps. We’ve been in the locker rooms together for cheer practice, and we’ve both had sex several times before, so this is nothing new. Why are we acting like it’s new? Both of us are shaking. My heart is beating so very quickly and I can’t catch my breath. I close my eyes hoping it will ease the sensation, but it only worsens and I can’t concentrate on Santana.

We are lying side by side on my bed staring at each other. Our legs are wrapped around each other and Santana’s hand is cupping the back of my neck. She smells like freshly cut grass and Calvin Klein’s ‘Truth’. We aren’t doing anything except we are doing everything.  
  
I realize why this is so strange. I trust her. I trust Santana more than I have ever trusted anyone. I may trust too easily, but never with this stuff. That’s the difference. What would make me happy is to make her happy. What would make her happy is to make me happy. There is confusion because no one knows where to start. It’s both selfless and selfish. I can’t make my words explain.

Eventually we continue on. It’s awkward, both of us walking on tightropes hoping we don’t drop the other. But it’s kind of nice, the awkward. I like figuring out what Santana likes. It’s nice to know new things. We use such soft quiet hands and we ask, we always ask. I remember that rule now.

It feels so different than sex before had, and at the same time it feels the same. I can’t really describe it. Word clog. Physically sex with Santana is mechanically different, and the shivers through my body are slightly too, but the essence of sex is similar. It’s not really better or worse than any other sex I’ve had. Well, certainly better than some instances (Greg Vandershay really needs to figure out the concept of a basic rhythm that doesn’t imitate the Roadrunner).

Santana traces patterns down my sides. It’s so gentle but it scratches into me like a tattoo. I hope the mark is permanent. I think because I really trust Santana, and respect her, and I am 5000% percent confident she feels the same towards me (Sorry, I’m bad with math. Big numbers mean a lot right?), the purpose of this sex is different. It’s not about control this time because neither of us wants to take that away from the other and we aren’t afraid of losing it.

I kiss her. It’s maybe not so gentle. I’m trying to breathe her in, somehow mash our two bodies into one form which sounds silly. She hums and responds, pressing back with equal force but we are still two people.

Maybe it isn’t sexy or hot or any sort of turn-on, and I know this isn’t always true but I think, for me at least, sex is better with feelings.

* * *

 

“…to put it as simply as possible, the life you remember, it’s not real. Someone else made your life up and forced you to believe. It never existed.”

Sugar makes this loud elephant gasp. She doesn’t sound at all as pretty as I imagined her, especially with the odd jungle noises coming out. I think she might be panicking like I did back in the fire.

Sam finally started speaking but he’s yammering in gibberish. His words come out even worse than mine. He just keeps repeating “Navi navi” over and over again and it’s giving me a headache. I’m so confused. What did Blaine even say?

Blaine is freaking out too; he’s desperate. I can see his eyes swimming with tears he won’t shed because the darkness might attack. He is a mess of words and hands fluttering but no one is listening.

_She watches silently as the world spins on around her. Brittany alone is the eye of the storm. Knowledge is power and confusion consumes mind, body, and soul. Of this Brittany is well versed. Ultimately, fear is unknownable. It derives strength from being something which cannot be explained, or worse yet, something that can be, but without knowing if there is hope left for change. Brittany simply rubs her arms to protect against the growing chill as she witnesses the renewed birth of fear. Patience will be her savior and her enemy._

_“It never existed.” Three simple words have torn down the façade of normalcy. It’s nice not to feel alone in this, but the guilt of finding pleasure in others pain outweighs that minor courtesy. What could Blaine have meant by that? Brittany’s life never existed? But she is here. She can feel the tickle of the loose strings from the couch against the crook of her knees. Even though she’s trying to block it, she can still hear the cacophony around her and can sense a vague emptiness in a part of her she can’t locate. She must be here. This she knows is fact. How could her life never exist if she exists now?_

_The things she remembers are still out of order. But much of what she remembers never made sense in the first place so this is nothing new. Or is it? If what she remembers was never there, maybe it just doesn’t make sense now. But that seems like a fallacy built in strange concepts of someone else’s head. Someone who is not her. Someone who did not see, or smell, or taste, or hear, or feel, or know and love the things Brittany did. Of course what she remembers happened. Of course it exists. It exists because she remembers, not the other way around._

_Brittany’s attention returns from the philosophical void in which it was drowning, snapped to by the shrill of Sugar’s voice questioning the same thing, but in a much more straight-forward fashion._

“What?! No. No. NO! Bullshit. I call bullshit on that. What does ‘The life you remember is not real.’ even mean?!”

The room finally goes silent as we all stare at Blaine. This time it seems like we are willing to wait for the answers even if they are just as scary as the questions.

“Tonight, what happened was, uh, a fire. We, meaning Kurt, Mercedes, Wes, and David set a fire in the east wing on the third floor of the Lima Heights General Hospital. That’s where you guys were, in the hospital. They set the fire as a distraction so they could rescue you, get you guys out of there. Um…uh. What I’m trying to say is that you were, err are?...No, were patients at this place ehh...”

“Blaine, I know this is hard but just get through it. You don’t have to build up to it. Reality doesn’t do climaxes, it’s a barely organized series of moments. They happen. Things just happen. It’s easier to rip the bandaid off now. I can take over though if it’s too difficult.”

“Thank you Mercedes, but I can do it. Okay, within the hospital there are certain units devoted to medical research somewhat, but not really, hidden from the general public. This is where we brought you from. As hard as this is to believe, you were research subjects for a medical technologies corporation called ‘New Directions.’ Mercedes, Kurt and I were as well.

We do not know much about the nature of this company, but what we have figured out is beyond human recognition. I don’t understand it myself, how this could happen. But we will give you the details of this in fragments as time passes. We do not want to shock your systems more than they already are. 

Anyway, ‘New Directions’ has been doing a series of long-term research trials for we don’t know how long. They have developed a system that they commercially call a Syn-Syn R. Trent, who’s not here right now, knows more of the science behind the technology. The best way we can explain it is that the Syn-Syn R utilized under a particular protocol can induce specific synapses to fire in the brain, as well as manipulate the creation of certain connections between neurons. It can destroy these as well.

In short, they can create memories, even feelings and thought processes, maybe even the identity of a person itself. Though these are much more complicated and to the best of our knowledge, this hasn’t been achieved.

New Directions’ is planning to market the Syn-Syn R with the goal of helping those who have lost their memories to amnesia, or those who have experienced traumas and need their experiences altered, but…”

“But this is a crock of shit. There are obviously ulterior motives. There always are with these things. It’s not like they used my community and my people for the first trials just by crazy random happenstance. Matt Rutherford hasn’t been missing for over two years because ‘New Directions’ compensated him for fucking with his brain so he’s vacationing in San Los Obispo. No, they wanted him gone and they want us gone too.” 

“Mercedes. Please don’t scare them so much." 

“No. I’m going to scare them. They should be scared. This is scary, really fucking scary.”

Kurt quickly jumps in, massaging Mercedes’ shoulders as he speaks. “I know hun. I know. And that’s okay, but we have to do the best we can to help them, or all of this effort is of no use. Please, for me?”

Mercedes gives a gentle nod and Blaine continues, “The simplest way I can put it is that we don’t know what did or did not happen because most of it was designed in a lab. You may not believe us right now, but that’s the truth. This is as much info. as I’m going to give you tonight. You’ve had a long day and need some time to sleep and absorb a little.”

“We promise everything will be explained to the best of our capabilities in time. Please trust us.” 

When Kurt finishes speaking I feel him tap my shoulder. I get up like I think I’m supposed to. I don’t really know what’s expected of me anymore at all. I just follow orders. It’s less work for my head.

 

I just really want to sleep forever.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Memory #5:**

The warmth of Santana’s back presses into my chest and the left side of my face. Her smooth thighs simultaneously contrasting and blurring with the silvery white light refracting from the horse below us. 

Well not horse. Unicorn.

The vibrations radiate everywhere, especially to places my mother told me were not lady-like to mention. I’m not sure if this is from the unicorn or Santana. Probably both. I always have a humming just below my skin when I’m near her. It magnifies in the presence of magic.

I think Santana is magic too. She just doesn’t know it yet. 

Her hair tickles my face as it loosens from its ponytail. I want to feel that freedom as well so I remove the elastic from mine and shake it out in the wind. It breathes like relief. I’m smiling and I can’t stop. It’s almost too much giddiness. I have to share it so I press my lips along the curve of Santana’s shoulder. A string of golden pearls leaves my mouth and wraps around her neck and trails up to form a crown of light wrapped up in the darkness of her hair. I watch as the pearls melt into her. The smile has been transferred.

Santana rubs her fingertips along the mane of the unicorn and it slows to a halt. I unwrap my arms from her waist and hop off. When we are both securely on the ground I blow a kiss to the unicorn and it gallops off to join its brothers and sisters in the woods behind my house.

I watch it with an ache. Santana can sense the change and asks what’s wrong.

“I just wish I was a unicorn. Bright. Magic. The prettiest thing in the world besides you. Than you could ride me into the sunset and we would never again have to worry or be sad.”

She tilts her head sideways and quirks an eyebrow up, “Wanky.”

“San. That’s nice too, but you know what I mean.”

After a long enough pause for even the birds to chirp a response, Santana looks at me with the eyes that say, “I’m still not ready to say it, but I love you so much. Can I kiss you?”

I blink slowly twice. My silent language for “Yes, please.” 

In one swift swoop my back is pressed against a tree. Her fingers tangle in mine against the bark. This is the best kiss I can remember. I’m going to memorize the way the stars shoot out of my fingertips and the whispers Santana leaves along my neck.

She is saying, “All I am, is yours.” I am trying to say the same thing back but Santana is so much better at communication than I am.

I kiss the spot in front of her right ear and blow a breath along it. I hope the chill coursing through her let’s her know all I don’t know how to say.

This is more of a promise than words.

* * *

 

I wake up all at once before I can even register Kurt tapping on my shoulder, the shock of it a small seizure. 

The tension hasn’t yet died down as Kurt whispers, “Honey, it’s time to get up. We have to head to my place in an hour for the meeting. I’ve put your hot cocoa on the end table.”

He walks away.

I can’t really relax yet. I need to perform my morning ritual first. It’s a little something I’ve started doing to help me remember what’s real and what’s Dream. Even after 6 months everything is still out of order and moving too fast. The story’s already over and I can’t catch up. Mercedes says she has an easier time of it. Since she was used before me the process wasn’t as clean. She has fuzzy edges around her Dreams.

Okay. I start taking deep breaths. I pretend I’m sucking in lungfuls of the sea. It’s medication. Meditation? 

The supercalifagilisticexpialdociously long list of reality:

1)    My name is Brittany.

2)    I was used as an experiment.

3)    I don’t know anything about my life before.

4)    They gave me a lot of fake memories and feelings.

5)    I was in what Kurt calls the “Happiness Trials”. That means the bad guys were trying to create joy, beauty, and childish innocence.

6)    Sam and Sugar were also in these trials.

7)    Kurt and Blaine don’t like to talk about their trial. I think theirs was very scary though because they are afraid of shadows and sudden movements and other people. They hold each other all the time. I think it’s how they keep solid and stop themselves from running away.

8)    Number 7 is a really long point.

9)    The Warblers were never experiments.

10) They are people who found out about what New Directions was doing and help us.

11) Most people know what’s going on. But they don’t care. Or they think it’s fine.

12) Lord Tubbington never existed.

13) But on a mission Trent found some papers that say he kind of does.

14) The bad guys need a way to measure that their experiments are working. They call it a control. So they put a tester into the Dreams. Usually the control is an animal that they can easily manipulate in order to watch if your brain is doing what they want it to.

15) Kurt thinks his was a bird called Pavarotti.

16) Blaine told me a sad story once. The bad guys didn’t always know it was best to use animals as controls. They used to insert themselves into the Dreams. There was a bad guy who wasn’t so bad one time. Her name was Tina. She fell in love with her experiment, Mike. She felt so guilty about what she was doing that she found the Warblers and helped free him. But when Mike woke up he was scared and upset. He thought the feelings he had for Tina were invented by her, so he killed himself. But they weren’t. They didn’t know how to create love yet. Tina tried to help Kurt, Blaine, Mercedes, and the Warblers for a while but eventually she couldn’t stand the heartbreak anymore and she left reality too.

17) This story always makes me cry.

18) I don’t know if the bad guys know how to create love now.

19) Magic does not exist.

20) Santana does not exist.

The entire process takes 45 minutes. When I’m done remembering I quickly get dressed in the worn skinny jeans, ballet slippers, and slightly too tight green tank top Kurt picked up for me at a second-hand store back in the beginning. I fasten my hair into a loose side braid and drink the room temperature hot cocoa. I quietly wait on the couch that doubles as my bed.

Five minutes later Kurt, Blaine, and I are walking towards a new bus stop seven blocks away. We have to use a different one every time we travel. Months and years later and we’re still not allowed to exist. 

_They never talk when they travel. Partially because it’s dangerous, and partially because what is there to say? Brittany uses the silence to dream. Little dreams. Ones that she can better separate from the jerky stops and starts of the bus, though not always._

_She doesn’t want to forget what happiness is. She will probably never have it again so she has to make it. She’s become her own bad guy. Brittany’s been rescued but she’s just as trapped as before, only now she is aware of it. She hasn’t decided if the glass cage was better._

_In Brittany’s little dreams she is petting Lord Tubbington, buying him a new T-shirt. She is dancing. She is singing. She is Ke$ha. She is swimming with mermaids and playing with baby faun._

When we finally get here I recall how much Kurt’s hiding place looks like a dollhouse attic but ugly.

“When’s tea time?” I ask. “I have a date later and I don’t want to be dizzy.”

Santana and I like to have tea parties sometimes. We get all dressed up in our prettiest gowns and get drunk off sugar cubes and strawberries. Lord Tubbington always tries to join us but we won’t let him because he eats all the napkins and his bad manners ruin the mood.

I feel someone brush my elbow. It’s Blaine. He and Kurt are looking at me with deer eyes like they pity me and I remember. Santana.

_This is one of those ‘not always’ times._

_Brittany has forgotten that Santana is gone. She often forgets Santana is gone despite point 20 on the list. Sometimes she dreams her. But those aren’t real. Santana is only real in big Dreams. Brittany wants to cry because she misses her so much, but the owls are staring._

_“Hoot, hoot. Come back. There is no time to go dancing.”_

I don’t respond to their looks. I just sit down in my favorite painted wooden chair. I stare at the swirls of yellow and blue climbing up the bars on the back. The chair is an oncoming storm but it reminds me of home.

I tell myself not to talk again until I have to. I always embarrass myself and make everyone sad. They don’t think I know that I am the most messed up of them all. Even Sam who couldn’t speak English and was convinced for 3 weeks he was supposed to have blue skin is doing better than I am. I’ve never been very good at keeping up.

That’s probably because I don’t want to. I’m scared if I get better I will forget what I was never supposed to remember.

I don’t tell anyone this of course. Or about my little dreams game. They will think I’m crazy and they are all I have. Where do I go if they think I’m too crazy for them?

I’ve decided to join them. Try and help if I can. Kurt says Blaine and him needed purpose, they needed to fight back, they needed to feel control again. That way they wouldn’t feel so lost and weak. It hasn’t worked all the way, but a little. Plus they have each other.

I want that. I hope I can have that.

Well anyway, today is my first “briefing.” I go on my first mission in a couple days.

Everyone I’ve met over the last few months is here now, everyone except Sugar. She decided to try regular people life. I think she works at a frozen yogurt shop downtown.

Mercedes starts the meeting off. 

“Okay everyone. This mission will commence Sunday at 11:00pm. The hospital should be pretty empty then. Especially since it’s a long holiday weekend. We leave here at 9:00pm to get there in time to prep. This is only an information reconnaissance mission, which is good because it’s Sam and Brittany’s first outing. They of course will be paired with more experienced members. Sam will go with me, and Brittany with Blaine. Kurt you are on home base duty this time. Trent and Wes, you’ve got security disarming as usual. Nick and Jeff, how has your awareness campaign been going?”

“Well, we’ve gotten about 30 new students from the Dalton campus to sign up for the email list. None of them ever show up for things though. At least not yet. So much apathy it’s infuriating. I think they just put their name on the petitions because it makes them feel better but they don’t actually want to put real effort in.”

“Nick, calm down. We’ll get them eventually. Keep faith.”

“Are you guys up for distraction duty even though David’s out with mono this week?”

“Yep. The Emergency Department is near the main records hub Tina told us about. Nick is going to come down with a nasty case of appendicitis and I’m going to be his lover they won’t let back with him. Naturally I will be enraged and have a major hissy fit. They’ll need the entire hospital staff to handle the ferocity of my righteous indignation.”

“Sound plan. Blaine and Brittany, once security to the records room is disabled you are going to head in first. You’re on hard copy collection duty. Remember you have to use the copy machine they probably have in a nearby office to make doubles of memos and datasheets. They’ll notice if we just take the originals. Sam and I will handle cracking the codes to the computers and downloading on to the flash drives. Everyone out by 1:00am or when Jeff’s tantrum stops holding.”

Blaine pulls out a hand-drawn map of the hospital. I wonder who made that? He unfolds the paper, places it on the dusty oak floor, and points.

“Thank you Mercedes. Okay let’s go over logistics of getting in and out.”

“Wanky.” my head supplies in Santana’s voice.

* * *

 

**Memory #6:**

I’m walking home with Santana. We are going to have a ‘Sweet Valley High’ marathon and pretend to eat ice cream out of empty containers. We can’t really eat it because Sue will know and she will ground us. I don’t think that’s fair though because ice cream and fat don’t make people bad cheerleaders.

We link pinkies and swing our arms between us all the way back to her place. We don’t talk, but like I’ve said, we don’t have to.

Little things.

In the kitchen I scream up to Santana upstairs, “WHAT FLAVOR DO YOU WANT?! YOU HAVE MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP, ROCKY ROAD, AND SOMETHING THAT TASTES LIKE PINK!”

“MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP IS MY FAVORITE. I’LL HAVE THAT!”

“THAT’S MY FAVORITE TOO! WE CAN SHARE. I GOT TWO SPOONS. I WISH THEY HAD DOUBLE HEADED SPOONS THEN WE’D ONLY NEED ONE!”

“Britt, you don’t have to yell anymore. You’re in the room with me now.”

“OPPS…err opps sorry.”

I sit down on the bed with her and press play. We have the volume on low. We don’t really watch the T.V. much during our marathons.

“Ouch Britt! What was that for?!”

“You had a grey hair. Here, I plucked it out for you. See?”

“Ugh. Gross. Get that away from me. I don’t want to witness my old. Besides it looks more gold than silver.”

I throw the hair on the carpet and our usual lazy afternoon activity commences. Yummy, sweet lady kisses are the best.

Once the DVD menu has been on repeat for 15 minutes Santana rolls off the bed and starts adjusting her hair.

“My mom is going to be home soon so we should clean up.”

I don’t know why it feels different today, but Santana’s casual indifference towards whatever it is we are hurts me.  Well, if I’m going to be completely truthful it has always hurt but it comes in dull pulses so I don’t always recognize it.

I think about the time I was swinging at the park and a bee attacked me. The after-burn of that. Yes, that’s what Santana feels like; a bee sting. But like a cute fluffy bumblebee. She doesn’t mean to sting, she just wants to protect her nest. Not one of those mean wasps that I swear are totally out to get me.

It’s not her fault. But that doesn’t change the fact that my head feels thick right now. So much pressure building up behind my eyes I have to fight to keep it back. I’m not crying or anything, but pressure.

Sometimes my head feels so filled with mucus that I don’t know I’m letting it fall out.

“San. What is this? What we are doing? I like my sweet lady kisses, but like, do you like me?”

She turns her head and looks at me with a look of, “You promised you wouldn’t make me talk about this.”

Santana’s face morphs into something new. Something that’s been betrayed.

But it’s too late to stop the mucus, it keeps coming, and the worst part is I don’t even think I care anymore. I just need it out. But there are so many questions jumbling together in my brain. They don’t make sentences. I can only quietly squeak out one word. 

“San.”

Her cold persona takes over so quickly it actually feels like the A/C has been kicked up a couple of notches. I shiver as she says, completely void of emotion, “It means nothing. I told you it’s different because the plumbing is different.”

“But I don’t understand. It’s confusing.”

“Breakfast is confusing for you.”

“Yah, sometimes it’s sweet and sometimes it’s salty. Like what if I have eggs for dinner, then what is it?”

Santana looks puzzled, then turns away and resumes making her bed. For the first time I doubt our magic powers.

I was trying to metaphorize the ambiguity of everything. The dissonance. How confusing it is. Like staring into a void and jumping into nothingness. I’d rather fall and feel something than float there never knowing when the crash is coming. But nothing is easy. Not breakfast, not Santana, not my mind. I’ve started using words I didn’t know I knew. Jumping through space, unstuck in time. It’s dizzying and I just want someone to hold on to who understands.

But Santana didn’t understand. And now I’m scared we never could read each other’s minds. Maybe I made that up. Now I really need her to say all the things I saw her say before. A thought is chewing its way up my chest. What if none of it’s true?

“I think we should talk to someone.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any bolded lines are lyrics from the song by which this fic was inspired. Song is mentioned in fic notes, but for repetition's sake is Unravel, Unwind by The Spring Standards.

I’m smiling for the first time in perhaps ever. Kurt and Blaine are smiling too. It looks foreign on them, almost creepy. Like painted faces on dolls, a strange place between cartoony and honesty. But it’s still nice to see even if their smiles disturb me.

We are far too drunk on the fruity colored drinks served in test tubes. Drinking science while flashing lights and heavy bass notes cover the screaming in us all. We are the ones damaging ourselves.

This club is torturous and sexy. Embrace the fear. It’s hot.

I’ve never heard any of this music before, but that’s not the point. The point is my hips. The point is my ass. The point is the sweat at the nape of my neck. The point is this glittery cut off tee shedding all over the dance floor. The point is the beautiful girl with her hands in the dip of my back. The point is her spiky pink-tipped hair and the softness of her lips.

The point is the point.

“Let’s go some place more--private.” She breathes into me.

I look for Kurt and Blaine. Hoping they see me go. But they are too lost in creating their own moment to notice.

We sweep off the dance floor and she leads me through a tangle of bad dancers into a dark hallway. We maze our way into the women’s bathroom. She pounds her fist on the paper towel dispenser, opening it, and takes something out. She jams the flat object into the crack of the door, tugs on the handle, smirking when it doesn’t budge.

We are alone.

Panic is setting in.

The girl tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and rests her hand on my cheek.

“You are a quiet one aren’t you? Haven’t said a word. This is your first time with a woman isn’t it? That’s okay. I’ll help you.”

Except it’s not my first time. Is it?

I want to let her take-over so I don’t have to think about that, but I can’t. Sex is automatic to me. I kiss her hungrily and take the lead.

* * *

 

I love sex.

_She loves the warmth, and the tingling, the mountain dew on their skin. She relishes the smell of success, ears ringing with glitter. The taste of salt on her tongue reminds her of childhood, backyard barbeques of potato chips and hamburgers and happiness._

_But most of all she loves the movement. She loves changing pace and form with a mutual purpose in mind. Sex is the one of two times she is allowed to let her body communicate. It’s how she understands, and right now someone else is able to translate. The thoughts in her head don’t form in words but pictures and feelings and color and sound and simple existence. They are so much. They jumble up and get clogged. They always get clogged._  
  
But she can feel the electricity move through her limbs and she can speak and people will listen. Movement is her body; movement is her control. When her mind is taken, she always has that.

Right now my lover’s giggle sounds like goats and it makes butterflies dance. I like him.

 

_And though Brittany truly enjoys sex, outside the Dream it seems different. A phantom of what was. She had hoped it would be the reverse. Instead something, or more correctly, someone is missing, and she is forever chasing that high._

* * *

 

I get back to Kurt’s place at 4:00 in the morning.

And yet again him and Blaine are sitting on the couch waiting for me with a mug of cold cocoa.

“This is the fourth time this week Brittany. We should have never gone to Scandals. You know how worried we get about you. This isn’t safe. We don’t know if anyone’s looking for us. You know that.”

I say nothing. I don’t even feel guilty, even though Blaine’s right.

_They need the group to feel alive. She needs this._

“Your first mission is tomorrow. You need to be ready. We need to take all precautions. Do you understand?”

Nothing.

“Britt?”

Blaine’s use of the nickname catches me off guard. It feels like a heart attack but I thought those were from loving too much? I have to work extra hard to make sure I don’t slip into one of my moments. It’s exhausting so I just nod and head to the bathroom to wash the black from around my eyes.

_The permanently smudged mirror reflects the remnants of her makeup that has collected in the hollows under her eyes, glitter that’s lost its shine pooling in the creases. Everything surrounded by shadow. A face that has not seen the sun. A face that has become the ghost she once feared. They did follow her after all._

_It is no wonder Kurt and Blaine look at Brittany with fright-laced pity. They know better than anyone the fragility of her state. Skins stuffed with poison. But in a world without magic Brittany doesn’t know if she is as strong as them, if she can keep from folding in and blowing away._

_Her latest lover may have scoffed at the line in that Katy Perry song, but Brittany does feel like a plastic bag._

_She swipes the damp washcloth along the corner of her eye and hums to herself._

**“The trouble’s with me. I couldn’t face you so I stabbed your back.”**


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Non-explicit mention of the rape/non-con. moment in an earlier chapter. If you wish to skip it avoid the "Memo"

The next morning I wakeup late. I can’t see the sun because of the curtains but I can feel yellow filtering through. It’s warm and groggy begging me to close my eyes again. Sleeping so long scares me.

“Am I awake? Kurt? Kurt? Am am I here? KURT! BLAINE! AM I AWAKE? PLEASE AM I AWAKE?!”

“YES! Yes Brittany you are awake. I’m sorry we didn’t get you up we were upstairs. It’s okay. Let’s breathe. Ready?”

I nod and Blaine places my hand on his chest and puts his own on mine. We breathe together. Slow and even, slow and even and predictable.

I go through my morning ritual and remember slow and even, slow and even and predictable. The rest of the day is a blur until it’s 11:13pm and I’m crouched in some bushes staring at a map lit by a flashlight.

“Does everyone have the plan down?”

A thousand glowing eyes shake yes.

Blaine pulls his cardigan around him tighter and places a newsboy cap down low on his forehead. I like the elbow patches on his sweater. He won’t get hurt if he falls. He’s safe like family.

“Grandpa, where’s the bathroom? These bushes make me have to pee.”

He smiles and hands me a too large peacoat actually the color of peas; baby throw-up peas. I tuck my kind of ratty hair up into a fluffy knit and fur hat. I think it’s fake fur though. I’d be so sad if I was wearing Lord Tubbington.

We head in before Nick and Jeff and try to look like we’re looking for something, but not like we’re looking for what we’re actually looking for. Oh! Tongue Twister!

Soon enough Jeff is crying and yelling and I’m pretty sure he’s actually throwing chairs now, but I don’t really pay attention. Blaine has my hand, carefully tugging me down a hallway as nurses rush by us.

The pulling on my arm is too familiar and this place is too familiar and a stranger at the same time. I do not like this at all.

“Fingers crossed Wes and Trent have pulled through with reconfiguring this.”

Blaine swipes a credit card (I didn’t know we were shopping?) in front of a door marked with scary looking signs that I don’t bother reading because we’re already inside.

“Perfect. And no alarms yet. Good job boys. Here’s a flashlight Brittany. Can you start gathering paper out of those file cabinets while I look for a copy machine? Just keep everything in order.”

I do as I’m told. I almost drop a paper or two a couple of times but other than that I think I’m good at my job. I feel smart. I almost lose it all though when I hear the door open. Good thing I’m graceful and always stick my landings because I must have leaped three feet.

It turns out to be Mercedes and Sam. They ignore me and quickly rush over to two of the desks with computers and start clicking away.

Blaine returns shortly thereafter, grabs the folders from me and tells me to keep doing what I was and he’ll run back and forth between here and the copy machine. He calls it a “miniature and less efficient assembly line.” I’m not sure what that means but it sounds delicious.

Mercedes and Sam keep clicking, occasionally jumping to new computers and starting over. I keep gathering folders and handing them to Blaine. He comes and hands them back to me and I have to put them away exactly where I found them.

Slow and even and predictable.

“Okay. Brittany? Sam and I are finished so we are going to head out now. You and Blaine should finish up as quickly as possible and follow suite. Jeff predicted he could keep people occupied for max an hour and it’s been 55 minutes.”

And like that they are gone.

Blaine returns shortly though to save me from all the quiet. He wants to quick copy this last bit and then he says we’ll be out of here.

And I am alone again. In this place where I’ve been alone before.

AND I’M BORED.

Blaine is taking too long to finish and I’ve already put the last chunk of papers away. I fidget with the tassels on my hat, do a little dance. I almost knock over one of the computers so I stop doing that.

You know that phrase boredom makes you a cat? That’s the phrase right? Well, anyway, I’m curious now. What are we even copying?

I start flicking through some of the papers in a folder labeled #20613: 05/01/13-10/01/13. Most of it looks like yucky math. It’s a bunch of lines and numbers and letters. What the hell does BP: 100/71 mmHg mean? I notice a sheet that’s a soft blue, not white like all the others. I pull it out to read.

 

 

  
**URGENT MEMO** -Rossum Corporation

  
           **DATE:** 07/13/13                                                                        **SUBJECT ID#** 20613

                                                                                                     **NAME:** Brittany

**DIVISION:** New Directions-Lima                                                 **TRIAL:** Hap4

 

Subject 20613 Handler Dr. Steve Kurgen has been suspended from duty for a total of 5 months. When he returns he will be placed in the statistics office away from any active subjects. There are allegations of his excessive use of his authority as handler.

 

On 07/12/13 an intern, medical student Nayana Chadha, observed Dr. Kurgen performing an unscheduled adjustment to Syn-SynÒ 20613. Ms. Chadha claims when she walked in the room Dr. Kurgen quickly exited the program he was administering. He did not properly follow-up the procedure so she was able to check the records still on the system. Ms. Chadha, upon reading through the records, believes Dr. Kurgen may have entered another control monitor into the subject’s synthetic environment. Her hypothesis is that he entered a simple copy of his own likeness, which he may have utilized to imprint a sexual subconscious within 20613.

 

There is no other proof beyond Ms. Chadha’s account of this occurrence as the records have since been wiped. Precautionary measures have been taken to assure any future variables of this sort can be prevented.

 

 

My hands are sticking to the paper like clams. I can read this but it sounds like gnomish. It’s just cold all over and scary and when I read it…

 

 

_…she threw up. Her knuckles clenched white as she coughed and heaved echoes. The memo is an outline of a monster. When she hears the growling under her bed she runs away and remembers_.

* * *

 

_She is still vomiting dry air and trauma when the door beeps open. Brittany is too occupied wiping the spit from her lips to notice that the sound coming closer and closer is not Blaine’s. It is not even the sound of footsteps. And the hands wrapped in fingerless gloves holding the hair away from her face are not calloused enough to be Blaine’s. She cannot hear the rushed whispers in a voice that is entirely not Blaine’s._

_Estranged to the stranger._

_She is living in a cliché of a horror film. That moment when the walls close in and the oxygen starts to deplete and the killer is right behind them. The audience bites their nails. The tension feels insurmountable, but it’s not. One way or another a conclusion is drawn whether it’s painted in blood or survival. But Brittany cannot escape the moment of the dangerous before._

_There was a starman she had chosen to erase. The only virtue Brittany had been able to grasp from this whole mess of existence was that that never happened. If everything was a lie, so was the half there touches and blue-grey skin. She clung to this. But the big reveal exposed the manipulation. Everything else was a lie. All the goodness was a lie. The invasion was truth._

_The meta of it all fracturing what little hope existed; an irreparable snapping of the tethers._

_But even the sting of the recoil does not release the tendons holding the body together._

_The hands and the whispers that are not Blaine smooth their way down Brittany’s back. She curves into it a cat seeking comfort. She is slowly settled down on to a lap of boy who doesn’t mind that she doesn’t notice him. She is tenderly held as he exhausts himself wheeling them out of the room and down the hall into the dark damp chill. There is panic and yelling and swearing and the painful smack of hand against face. There is explanations and forgiveness, or close to it. There is relief and gratefulness and reunion. There are tears and smiles and laughs and more tears. There are a thousand and twenty three different things._

_Brittany is immune to it all. The soft blue of her eyes, like the soft blue of the paper, like the cold blue-grey of all too human skin, stare vacantly at the ceiling. Focused on a tea colored stain the shape of Africa. She can’t let her eyes wander from the land and get lost in the ocean. She may never come back._

 

_She may never awaken._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any bolded lines used in this story are song lyrics from various Spring Standards songs. Terribly Sorry about the hiatus there (well it is Glee right?), school gets in the way of non-school things.

**Memory #7:**

I haven’t talked to Santana in a week. I mean we had to a little during Glee club and cheer practice, but when I try to really say hi she just huffs and walks away. I don’t know what I did wrong. I think she’s mad I made her go to the guidance counselor with me to talk about feelings. San hates to talk about feelings but I’m so scared my magic doesn’t work anymore that I had to make her.

Miss Pillsbury wasn’t very helpful though. She just sat there looking uncomfortable and handed us a couple of pamphlets with titles like “I’m Sexually Attracted to Everyone Including Vaguely Human Shaped Bushes” and “My Best Friend is Lebanese and I might be Bicurious.”

That and every time it looks like I might be able to get San to look at me something stupid happens to stop her.

Like two days ago we were both supposed to be on the third tier of the pyramid. She was walking towards me and I swear I even saw her glance a little. A shy and honest moment that lasted only half a second because next thing I know Sue is screaming at her and putting her on the bottom rung.

I’m so upset. We used to be so close and I want to be her friend again. I want her to be my friend again. I don’t really have any others. Not ones that believe me. 

Yesterday I saw a water nymph. She was singing a lullaby and it was so pretty and peaceful I feel asleep with the sun grazing my cheek and woke up with leaves in my hair. It sounded like a happy song but it was tinged in sorrow. Santana wasn’t there to hear the song with me. What’s the point of something beautiful if you can’t share it?

I’m surrounded by people and I’m lonely.

I’m surrounded by people in a crowded hallway, tacking a drawing of Lord Tubbington up inside my locker. At least he loves me.

I can sense a shift in the wind around me but I ignore it. I know what it is but I’m trying to look like I don’t. Like I don’t care. Like her presence doesn’t automatically send sparks up my back and a smile to my face and a pain in my stomach. I’m not supposed to be this reliant on somebody right? I read that somewhere. I’m supposed to be independent but I feel needy.

When I can’t hold it off anymore I swallow and turn like I was expecting someone else.

Santana looks sad, and much like the weather, her mood alters mine.

“Hey.”

“Hey”

She takes a sharp intake of breath as if she’s preparing for something. She’s unsure of herself. I want to hug it away so badly. 

“I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry about getting mad at you for taking us to see Miss Pillsbury.”

She pauses, staring at the tips of her feet. She doesn’t feel brave. I try to project some of my courage into her but it’s so hard when I’m afraid to touch her.

“I just realized something. What I realized is why I’m such a bitch all the time. I’m a bitch because I’m angry. Angry because I have all these feelings. Feelings for you. Still I have to accept that…”

She’s crying. I’ve only ever seen her cry once and I’m breaking just watching her. 

“…that I love you. I love you and I don’t want to be with Josh or Aaron or any of those other guys. I just want you. Please say you love me back? Please?”

Santana looks so desperate that I don’t even stop to mention that I have told her I love her a thousand and twenty three times. It’s just so obvious.

“Of course I love you. I do. And I would totally be with you if you weren’t so scared of me. It’s not fair to hide how awesome you are. It’s not fair for me to hide it.”

The second part comes out on accident. I didn’t even know I felt that way.

I reach out for her hand but she quickly draws it towards herself as a shield.

“Don’t.”

I might as well have stabbed her back.

“Well, whoever thought that being fluid meant you could be so stuck.”

“I’m so sorry. Don’t…”

I want to hug away the ugly. Like the first time she did with me. Run away past the football field with our pinkies linked and fairies dancing around us.

She recoils from me before my arms are even around her.

“Get off me.”

And like that she is gone and I am alone again in a hallway crowded with people. My mind is finally silent. Out of things to say.

There is no one to rescue me from the quiet.

* * *

 

“Kurt, do you really think we should send her out on her own yet? It’s been weeks and she still hasn’t spoken. She looks…god I hate to say it, but she looks dead. Just going through the motions.”

“Yes. I don’t know. Yes. Just sitting here isn’t working. How many more times can we bring her hot cocoa, rub her back, tuck her in, and read _Goodnight Moon_ still thinking it might bring her back out? We have to try something new.”

“I’m just not sure it’s wise. Will it work?”

“We have to try. That’s all I can say.”

“Maybe we can’t do anything. She was never all here before. You know that.”

“It was shock. It’s still shock. Artie explained what that paper we found crumpled in her hand meant. I honestly don’t blame her. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, I wish I could retract like that. Just stop thinking and let the world flow through me. Don’t you? Don’t you ever want to stop jumping out of our skins every time we hear a sudden noise? Stop our hearts from pounding their way up our throats threatening to choke us? Stop imagining every shadow waking up and clawing at our feet? Just stop it all? I’m so tired of being scared Blaine. So tired.”

“Come here. Closer. I’m tired too. You know I am. And yes I wish I could stop it. I wish we could run away some place where the sunbeams can protect us. But we can’t. Well, we could. But even if I want that sometimes I don’t think we really want that. We have to keep telling ourselves that. We can’t run away. We have to fight it. It’s the only way to regain what is ours. And that’s why we have each other. To remind each other. To hold each other so that when we’re scared we know we’re not alone. It’s all we have, but I’m going to grab a hold of it. Please tell me you will too? If you don’t I…I…”

“I promise. Don’t think about the other option. I’m just exhausted from working so hard to keep going that I fantasize. It’s nothing. I promise. Brittany doesn’t have that though.”

“Doesn’t have what?”

“You. Someone. Something.”

“You’re right. We have to try something new.”

_Brittany hears. She doesn’t register yet, but she hears and puts it in storage. A time will come when she can listen. For now she just hears._

_She places her hands in the warm soapy water letting the turbulence settle around her elbows before she returns to scrubbing. The circular motion of the sponge along the smooth ridges of the plate is a kinetic energy. Slow and even and predictable, and less comforting than she’d wished. It’s not like rubbing in a soothing balm as she imagined. A dull throbbing pain consumes her whole self. And the fact that she cannot locate it or describe it only worsens the feeling. Slow and even and predictable is not always nice._

_A chunk of something is adhered to the plate. Brittany runs her fingernails along the crevice, chipping at the foreign article. It releases with an unexpected quickness and Brittany’s hand follows the laws of motion splashing grey suds onto her face._

_She blinks off the droplets that landed on her eyelashes but they drop into her eyes, blurring her vision. She falls._

_Brittany lets the dizziness float through while she crouches on the linoleum, held up only by the strength of her fingertips._

_She has to let this moment pass. They come more frequently these days. Slow and even and predictable. Her dreams have become more intense and they come all the time. Even if she doesn’t want to dream because it makes waking up that much harder. The dreams border becoming Dreams. Brittany’s mourning ritual is no longer effective and she is frightened out of her wits she’ll never find solid ground again. Lost in endless space with only the starman beside her._

_Brittany dreams of Santana in broken pieces. She’s holding her. She’s crying. They are dancing. They are fighting. Kissing, so much kissing. It’s quiet and questioning. It’s hard and angry. There is fear; there is forgiveness. There is love._

_It all blurs together and Brittany cannot pick things apart. She didn’t know it was possible to have this much at once. It’s a tangled ball of string. She wonders if anyone else in the history of ever has felt this much too. The thought overwhelms her. She cannot understand how she, much less how the world, can keep spinning when it’s shaped by such things._

_The answer of course is that it doesn’t, not really._

_It’s inertia that keeps things moving. It’s gravity. Physics._

“Hey Brittany? How are the dishes going?”

_She does not respond. Well, not verbally. She just turns to face Kurt, spooking him with the vacancy in her eyes._

“Blaine and I were wondering if you could do us a favor?”

_Nothing._

“We need you to go pick up some groceries from the shop down on North West Street. We’ve already been there too many times. They might recognize us so we figured we could send you. Does that work for you?”

“Here’s the list of what we need and some money. Feel free to pick up anything extra you’d like as long as you keep it within our budget. We’re running a bit low on finances so Blaine and I are going to look for some odd jobs in the neighboring towns. We might be home late.”

_Brittany watches as Kurt hesitates by the archway._

“Thank you.”

_An expression of gratitude that seems to span more than just running errands. Kurt is attempting to convey empathy and understanding. It’s a “We love you. We may not know you, truly. You may not believe us, but we do. We can’t not love someone who has been there too.” But mostly, it’s a thank you for surviving._

_In an act of forgotten instinct, Brittany slowly moves her head up in down in affirmation and words come tumbling out._

“You’re welcome.”

_Her voice shocks Kurt. She can tell his pulse has quickened by the way he grasps at his chest as if he was trying to keep it caged. But he does not linger on this long before he regains the delicate composure unique to his frame._

_And he hugs_

me. Soft but assertive. He hugs me like Santana did when she finally accepted herself. He hugs me like I hugged Santana when I thought she never would. And with the memory I can feel water gathering behind my eyes. I promise myself I won’t let them fall but I fail. I always fail.

I want so badly to believe him. I want so badly to trust him. I want so much but I can’t.

Santana was the only person who ever made me feel loved, completely. Not just the parts of me that were talented or funny or pretty. Everything. And I want that right now because I don’t feel finished.

_She feels a fissure, a literal crack running through her chest. Something ripping at the seams preventing her from fully being. She’s split and naked. Underneath the skin is just bloody muscle and sinew._

**And I think the thing that’s hurting, is I should so know better, but it’s much less work to take the bait than it is to forget her.**

But I can do this. I can go out by myself. I can do something reductive. Productive?

I hug Kurt back. It’s the least I can do.

“Hello again Kurt!”

He looks like he’s going to cry. No, he is crying. Blaine rushes into the kitchen, sees me, and now they are both crying.

“It’s okay. I’ll get the groceries. I’ll make sure you have your hot cocoa. Don’t cry Bambi and Papa.”

And before they can respond I grab the list from Kurt’s hand and the keys off the end table. I rush out the door and on to the street. It’s cloudy out but I’ve never seen so much sun.

I can do this. I can do this.

“I’m like the Little Engine that could!”

I can do this.

_She can do this. Not completely. But she can. She will. Brittany still reverberates between living in a fragile shell or an abused mound of flesh, but she will do this. It’s not hope she feels, it’s smaller and less fulfilling. And it does not last long._

_Brittany’s soft blue eyes reflect emptiness as she rides the bus. She barely holds on to the loop above her as the vehicle makes her body sway. She blindly gathers the items off the shelves. The nerve endings in her fingers do not comprehend a contrast in textures between the cereal boxes, bags of rice, and cartons of milk._

_Sometimes she can’t remember the things she just learned. When the world is out of order, so are you._

_Brittany doesn’t register that she has set down the plastic bags on the curb or that she is standing in the road, cars honking at the intrusion. Unaware of what that word really entails._

Everything is creeping up to the surface but it can’t escape. I want to cry again. I always feel like crying it seems. But there is too much energy in me to cry off; too much evil and ugliness. I need to push it out of me as hard and as far away as I can, so I start to dance.

_This is not a dance of pretty things. This is a dance of confusion and chaos, betrayal, fear, and more than anything, a dance of loss. It comes out jagged and harsh with moves that could injure. But as much as Brittany wants to hurt people, to toy with their worlds as much as they did hers, treat them like innocent dolls then rip their limbs off and throw them away, she remembers that she doesn’t really want that. She doesn’t even care about answers. She just wants her Dream back. And this makes her so angry at herself. Why do her feelings betray her? Why can she not have a river of fire coursing though her veins? Why can she not have that vengeance and barely controlled rage like Mercedes? Mercedes reacts naturally to the pain thrust upon her. She knows she cannot fix what was broken, but she can still live. She can yell and kick and scream and stomp her way through, clinging to this life. She even runs fighting into the night to give this to others. It doesn’t always work. Mercedes will never heal, but she keeps trying._

_Brittany doesn’t want life; she wants what she had, even though she knows it wasn’t ever anything. But her heart is so much smarter than her muddled brain. She reminds herself that just because the Dream wasn’t anything, doesn’t mean it was nothing. Artificially created leprechauns are still leprechauns and artificial love is still love._

_Brittany’s dance slows and her limbs become fluid. Her being radiates grace and a strange sort of tenderness. She has not forgiven herself yet, and like Mercedes, she never will, but she will keep trying._

I hear a faint noise in the background. It grows louder until it’s so harsh I have to stop and press my palms to my ears. When I look around I realize I must have been dancing in the street and those passing by have stopped to clap and throw money at my feet. Kurt will not be happy with me. I have drawn too much attention to myself, which is a risk for us all.

_No, it is not quite hope. But she can do this._


	8. Chapter 8

**Memory #8:**

I made her a t-shirt and she still wouldn’t dance with me.

Why wouldn’t she dance with me?

I’ve never been this mad at someone. Especially if this someone is Santana. Being mad at her feels out of place. Like I’m mad at myself. When I think about that I get mad at myself for being mad at myself instead of being mad at her because it’s so not my fault.

I don’t even know what I was thinking about anymore.

Maybe I’m jealous. Which is stupid because we’re not dating so she can kiss whomever she wants. Even if it is that yucky Heath guy who is kind of mean to me sometimes. I told her no, not until she wasn’t afraid of me. So I shouldn’t be so angry about it. Why am I so stupid?

Gross. Santana’s right, feelings are yucky and kind of mean to me sometimes.

In happier news, it’s prom today! I love prom. I’ve never had prom before but I know I love prom. I have this new cute bright green dress with red fluff underneath and a mini top hat! I look like I’m in an 80’s music video but way prettier.

And I get to dance all I want without getting in trouble for “disrupting hallway traffic.” That’s the best part of course. I can impress people when I dance without thinking. I’m way more affective at that. Effective. Mr. Schue said the word was EEEEffective.

Anyway, it’s nice cause it’s easier. I’ve said that before but I’m going to repeat it because it’s true. Most the time people don’t know I’m thinking. They see me staring and say I’m not acting in character or something. But I am. I’m thinking really hard. It’s just difficult because nothing sounds like what other people speak when the thoughts are in my head. And I have to wait a couple minutes until I figure out the words I want. But usually it’s too late, and usually I’m wrong.  
  
Santana’s the only one who tries to help me find words and doesn’t laugh when I can’t. I don’t know why other people don’t try too. If they get tired or confused waiting for me they should help right? That’s what I’d do. Maybe they just like laughing at me and if they help they won’t be able to anymore? I guess I understand that even if it’s not very nice. Sometimes I say things that sound mean. I don’t plan on it; I’m just saying what I think of. But then people laugh at the other person and not me, like I meant to be mean. I feel bad admitting this, but it’s nice when they do that. For five seconds I’m not the one that’s stupid.

But when I dance I don’t have to worry about any of that. Way easier.

I hope Santana dances with me.

I’m still mad at her but I miss her.

She’s running for Prom Queen. I’m voting for her because I know how amazing she is. I just want her to see that. I don’t know how she doesn’t. She makes the sun shine. I read that line in a poem. But I think it’s really true for Santana. She makes me warm and tingly all over. And she makes my brain fuzzy in the nice way. You know? She’s like a really nice day when the light hits the water just right and softens the edges on everything. The kind of day that makes you think lots of things but I don’t mind thinking so much because it’s so nice and all my thoughts are pretty. See? Santana is the sun.

Maybe winning will show her if I can’t. That would be nice.

I say the word nice a lot. It doesn’t feel like it fits but I can’t figure out a better word. I don’t know if there is a word that means what I mean.

I’m thinking a ton right now. It must be a gentle sun day. I’ve always wondered if other people sound the same in their brains as I do. When I can get it in words it sounds like I’m reading a book. Does everybody have a never-ending story in their head? I talk about myself like I’m the lead character. Maybe I’m not even writing my own story. I don’t know. If everyone is like this that would be so confusing. The world is a gigantic library.

Mr. Schue would tell me that was a really pretty “metafloor.”

But it’s prom today so I’m not going to think about metafloors except the one I’m dancing on. Wait, I’m repeating myself again. I’m extra discomoballated today.

 

I really do hope Santana will dance with me.

* * *

 

I think it has been a year since Kurt and Blaine found me.

My, time comes and goes so quickly around here.

We haven’t gone on any missions since last time. Mercedes thinks it’s still too risky and by that she means I’m too risky.

Kurt says I’m doing better. I don’t know if I agree. Apparently the last mission we went on Blaine and I didn’t get out fast enough. Blaine was almost caught by the copy machine.

Not the copy machine. That would be silly.

Sorry, some janitor saw him and tried to take him to security. But he got over his fear for a couple seconds and remembered how to punch. He got away but he had to hide in some bathroom for a couple hours with his feet up on the toilet seat. Kurt talks about this with a shaky voice. He’s afraid Blaine will become his Santana I suppose.

Blaine told me he was super worried about me the whole time. He hoped I would figure out how to escape. I didn’t. That’s what they say; I didn’t escape. I don’t remember this. Well I do a little. It’s like a movie I watched a long time ago and if you asked me about it I couldn’t tell you but if you say, “Remember this part?” then I do.

But Artie, that’s the boy in the wheelchair, have I talked about him yet? He found me curled in a ball in the corner biting my fingernails off. I still have tiny scabs on my fingertips from when my teeth missed. He picked me up and carried me out and no one said anything. No one in the hospital cared. He took a secret path and Artie’s the son of the P.I. I don’t know what P.I. means but I guess it’s pretty important because no one questions their son.

Our group was pretty pissed from what they told me. They thought Artie was going to blackmail us because his parent is so important and all. But he promises he just wants to help. He thinks he can help a lot because he knows things he shouldn’t know. Artie is very smart. Nice too if he saved me even though he could have left me there. Now he has to worry about getting in trouble himself, but I don’t think he’d get in as much trouble as we would if we were caught. He looks guilty about that.

But being guilty about something you didn’t choose is silly. It doesn’t help anyone. I think that’s why he’s breaking the rules, because the rules are stupid and mean to us. If he didn’t make them, he can still break them.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand what happened to you guys. But I do know what it’s like to feel someone wants to change you. My mother’s other pet project, besides ‘New Directions,’ is to get me to walk again. I know it’s just her way of caring about me, especially since she blames herself for the wheelchair in the first place. But it’s not really caring if she wants to make me what I was. I don’t really want to walk again. I like the chair. It helped shape who I am. It’s a part of me now. I like that I’ve learned how to navigate a world that doesn’t like me. Learned how to dance even. Have you seen someone dance in a wheelchair? It’s pretty awesome. I can move faster than you if I want to too. Going down hills? Best feeling ever. Sure it sucks sometimes but there are so many things I like. And I like me. Why does my mom not see that? She still has to see something wrong. What’s wrong is this shit of a world _she’s_ helping create. I don’t want to be a part of that. That’s why I’m helping you guys.”

Artie talks an awful lot about himself for someone who wants to help us.

“We are trying to believe you Artie. You know it’s hard for us. Not much we can believe. We don’t have many options though. Tell us your idea.”

Mercedes looks worried. The hidden kind of worry though. The kind only my powers can detect. Even though she has the most reasons to not listen to people, she’s always the first one to do so anyway. She’s very grown up. But she’s been doing this the longest so she has to be.

“You and Sam were unable to get into the main counsel. You did get a lot of data off the other systems, but those are just for filing basic information such as active status records, etc… If you want the big shit, the stuff almost no one else knows, you are going to need to get into my mother’s and her coworker’s, the other P.I. Dr. Figgins, personal files. That’s where they keep the only copies of the ‘New Directions’ protocols, project abstracts, and any really controversial or innovative results they find. That’s the stuff they send in to get grant money from Rossum to fund them. You can find that information on the computers in their office but it’s protected by at least five different firewalls and getting in their room is tricky enough. Reconfiguring credit cards to act as I.D. badges is not going to work this time. I’ve already been discussing some of this with Trent. He has a few ideas that may work but we need to test them first on a less high stakes game.”

“Do you think this is possible at all? Truth?”

“Yes. Truth.”

Artie does this flippy motion with his hand that looks out of place before he continues on. He’s getting more and more frustrated sounding and it makes him all splotchy. I hope his robot parts don’t explode.

“It’s going to be difficult and take months of planning, but yes. If I’m going to be 100% honest, we may lose some in the process. But, and I don’t care if this is cliché, you have to fight back. What else can they expect from us, we’re people. I know the rest of the world might not see us like that but when they manipulate you when your vulnerable and toss you into hospitals dependent on machinery, take away your lives away and treat you like you’re nothing but dolls with stupid dreams _they_ designed, it has to freakin’ hurt. And yet you still act like you’re supposed to turn the other cheek and be the bigger man by telling yourselves, ourselves, that those dreams were still real and you’re free now so how you live now makes you better than them? But it gets pretty damn hard to feel that way when they always get to win. Don’t feed yourself any of that ‘it gets better’ crap because we can’t be interested in the getting any better. I want it to be better like right now. I want to help you hurt them like the way they hurt you. No, worse, I want them to feel your pain because frankly that’s all we have left right now.”

I’m not sure what any of this means. When this all first started the earth opened up and swallowed. I hoped I’d find the center and start melting away.  But I want to start thinking of myself as flying not falling.

I don’t think that. I just want to.

 

 

So I find myself agreeing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Memory #9:**

Guess what?! Santana is talking to me again! Guess what’s even better?! We’re together! At least I think we are. We had one of our special lady baths last night so I hope that means we’re dating. I’m going to ask for shrimp the next time we go to _Breadsticks_ though to “test the waters.”

Not the bath water. We tested that yesterday and it was the perfect temperature and the bubbles smelt like lavender but not so strong as to cover up Santana. We just lay there breathing for hours until the water got chilly enough to actually feel damp. By that point the water is grey and you’re not really clean anymore; which defeats the purpose of a bath. We dried each other off with Santana’s fluffy dark purple towels and everything. It was so perfect.

I think it felt so perfect because I missed her so much. It was like finally falling asleep after being awake for days. But I don’t want to miss her that much again, even if everything felt big when she came back.

I’m trying to think more in symbolism and metafloors now. I’ve been learning in school that saying things like that sometimes makes it easier to describe things you can’t describe. And they make you sound smart. So do these things called “idioms.” When I thought “test the waters” earlier, I believe that was an idiom. It still doesn’t make sense that using a thing like an idiom makes you smarter when the word is so close to idiot. 

Perhaps I’m just one letter off from smart too.

I’m thinking an awful lot again and I actually know why! Right now I’m flying! Yeah that’s right, flying!

I have to keep reminding myself because even though I believe everything, this is still more magic than I could imagine. Hippogriffs are very fussy creatures after all. But I got this one to like me. The one with different colored eyes too. My favorite of the herd. I need to never doubt myself again.

I don’t know why anyone does. That is how magic works, because you want it to work. I guess I knew that all along and now Santana does too.

Flying makes you think things even more than wonderfully sunny days do. The world blurs by so quickly you don’t have time to pay attention to anything else except yourself and the soft silvery texture of feathers clumped in your hands.

He smells like mildew.

Don’t worry, I know it’s _he_ because I asked. And mildew isn’t a bad smell. It’s homey.

I know I’m thinking right now, but I have a need to stop for a moment. I can’t explain it, but I have to reach the world. Stretch out and expose myself to it.

That makes no sense.

But here I am ignoring the burn in my thighs from clenching them against the sides of the Hippogriff. I’m sitting tall, my eyes closed and arms spread.

My body is all golden yellow and ocean breeze and in this moment I feel infinite.

 

No, wait. Why did I think that?

That last line about being infinite. It felt right to think at the time but once the sentence came out it became foreign and empty and frightening. It doesn’t feel like my words. 

But I thought them. How can they not be mine?

I stop flying, hugging closely to the Hippogriff, but even he doesn’t feel mine. This whole moment feels like something in a movie, or maybe in books. Not books I’ve read though.

I don’t understand. Nothing makes sense again. In a bad way doesn’t make sense. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Can it stop being sunny so I’ll stop thinking?

* * *

 

_Brittany can smell the panic. Who would have ever thought such a sense could detect emotion? Perhaps the odor forms from shallow coffee-tinted breaths and sleepless nights, from trace amounts of sweat beading under hairlines, from an unidentified compound linking us to our prehistoric past. Perhaps the scent is fabricated within the confines of ganglion cells and neurotransmitters. A psychopharmacology of norepinephrine, serotonin, corticotrophin releasing factor, and an entire fraternity of invisible molecules coursing through a chemo-electric highway, inventing. How such small things can collaborate to create, or destroy, so much is a perpetual mystery. One that only grows the more we seek._

_Brittany does not attribute the sulfurous molten lava or hidden undertones of spiced meat to chemicals. She does not take the time to question the how of it all. She has simply learned to accept and search for the why. Brittany’s philosophy is not trapped by the pedantic pageantry that shaped her. Her very existence borders the ironic._

_Brittany listens and absorbs as those around her internally spiral, unaware that she is aware. Her character is not consistent, and it may very well not be human. Of this she is fully cognizant. But she is going to be a survivor._

“Trent is working on erasing our record, but there is so much of it out there that it may be too late. The Warblers were first and foremost an awareness organization after all. We wanted to be heard and now we are paying the price.”

“We don’t know if the email you received means anything yet.”

“Blaine, don’t be so naïve. Does Wes need to hit you over the head with his gavel?! They received an email from an untraceable IP address telling them to give up. ‘It will not be philanthropic when your interference results in more pain for those you wish to save.’ What the fuck is that supposed to mean _besides_ a threat?!”

“And two days later we were told by the dean that the Warblers needed to cease any and all activity on campus. Supposedly they were informed by an anonymous source that we were violating school policy. The message being purposely vague, seeing as I checked and rechecked to assure we were following all the rules. I think they were threatened too. It’s the only logical explanation.”

“So you think ‘New Directions’ has discovered how to trace us? They know we’ve been retrieving information and rescues?”

“Blaine, honey, it’s not like we’ve been all that cryptic. Yes, we’ve covered our steps, spaced things out, and used methods that could appear accidental. After a point though, such a series of unfortunate events is going to take on a theme. The Warbler faction was educational. They handed out pamphlets for Pete’s sake!

Not to blame you guys; it’s an important part in any rebellion. Which is what this is turning into. We knew it was a matter of time before we were discovered.”

“Exactly. Hopefully Trent can remove enough from the interwebs so that we can’t be physically found. We were always paranoid about that aspect so I’m optimistic. The main concerns are one, disbanding the Warblers. We can’t exist anymore. That means no more emails, phone-calls, anything traceable, and minimizing our leaves from campus. Two, save your resources. You need to get out of the state within the next 4 months. And finally, no more missions.”

“But what about Artie’s plan? We’ve been working on that for months and it may be finally the one that gives us enough information to take down ‘New Directions’ once and for all?”

“No more missions Sam.”

_And with that Brittany is sad. So very very sad. The kind of sad that sinks into the shoulders. A thousand and twenty three pounds of invisible chemical weight filling her pores._

_She smirks, the left corner of her mouth twitching up. She smiles because it is all there is left to do when sadness is not enough._

_Brittany knows this is the end.  Intuition or magic, something’s quivering in the fabric._

_She knows this is the end, but she will be a survivor._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, bolded lines signify Spring Standard's lyrics.

**Memory #10:**

I’m scared. Everything is so mushy and I don’t know what I want anymore.

Santana and I are dating. We love each other. Right? I love her. 

I think. 

I’m so confused.

Santana’s my girlfriend now but it doesn’t feel like I thought it was supposed to. It’s not like ‘Sweet Valley High’. It’s not like what it was.

We barely see each other. There’s always something keeping us apart. And when we do get to be together it’s like she’s not there, just an empty cheerleading costume. Maybe someone bewitched her? Took Santana out and left her skin filled with a dark sad magic so it can still cheer and no one will know she’s faking. 

We don’t talk. Not really. When I look at her she looks off. Like her eyes are pointed at me but she’s focusing on something in the distance. When I touch her she feels cold and fragile. If I kiss too hard the seal might break and the blackness will seep into me.

How come when I get what I wish, it’s not what wished for?

I know magic is supposed to come with a price. I just really hope I didn’t use all mine up. I want my Santana back.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. Making a mole into a mountain. (Idiom!) Santana has been going through a tough time. This asshole—sorry, I know I don’t swear often, but he deserves it—yelled at her in the hallway and now everyone knows she loves me. She wasn’t ready for that and lots of bad stuff happened. She had to tell her parents. Her abuela wasn’t happy.

I don’t know what I’d do if the person I wanted the most to be proud of me wasn’t. I don’t know what I’d do if everything I was afraid of happened.

She must be so overwhelmed. I wish I could gather her in my arms and whisper, “It’ll be okay. **You can watch the moon disappear. When you get back, I’ll be right in here**.”

But I didn’t. I won’t. I’m frozen. Santana, I’m not like you. When I’m frightened I shut down. I stop speaking; afraid the wrong things will come tumbling out. They almost always do anyways.

I just give her quiet lonely hugs and smile.

You know what? No. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t just shut up when I’m scared.

I close my eyes far too quickly. The sudden change in perspective is dizzying, making me sway slightly on the balls of my feet. I steady myself and pinch them closed tighter. I can feel the wrinkles shoot up from my cheeks to my forehead. But I’m going to fight the icky feeling, the one telling me to relax, let it go, because I need to channel Santana.

My Santana. Not this zombie. Oh no, is she a zombie? I don’t want to shoot her.

STOP IT BRITTANY! Focus.

I need her and she needs me but we’ve both been ignoring it. So frightened of failing that we are losing what we are trying to keep.  
  
I need the bits of her that are ‘Lima Heights.’ I need to scream. I need to bring her back. Whatever it is I need to do, well, I need to do it.

* * *

 

“No! No, turn around! The guy’s right behind you. Gaaaah!”

A splattering of black-grey spaghetti hits the screen with a sickening boom. The man on the television lowers his gun. Both him and Sam sigh relief in a strange coordinated dance. It’s gross.

Mercedes’ place is much smaller than Kurt’s and Blaine’s. It crammed with half-full cardboard boxes and disorganized furniture. Dishes with food crumbs piled in the sink, highlighted newspaper clippings taped all over the walls, and noisy upstairs neighbors who have to be either doing jumping jacks or having really intense sex.

I hope it’s the sex. At least that sounds like fun.

Sam and I are watching one of his old monster movies sitting on boxes filled with books that have titles like _Playing God: Science and the Ethics of Innovation_ and _The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde._

It’s not very comfortable and my mind wanders. There are no ceiling lights, only one floor lamp giving a halo of light around the edges of the room. Everything makes a too short shadow. When the cars pass by outside another one grows from their belly and stretches across the floor. It’s a good thing Kurt and Blaine aren’t here.

For a moment I can imagine them shuddering and floating up to the corners of the room. They would hold each other stuck to the ceiling where the only safety is.

But the image flickers away when I notice Sam is talking to me.

“I think we should still do it.”

“Do what? Find a new shelter?”

“No, that was stupid of them. Never leave your house during an apocalypse unless it’s for necessary provisions. No, I mean we should still do Artie’s plan.”

“But they said it wasn’t safe to try any missions?”

“Yes, but Mercedes and I agree it’s not safe to do anything anymore. We think we should try one last thing before we leave. Or it would all be for null.”

“Null?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Null means nothing.”

“You’re here. You’re not nullthing.”

“Maybe. But don’t you want to try and stop them? Try our best to make sure ‘New Directions’ can never hurt another person? I don’t know about you but I feel like I’m living a half-life. I don’t know where I came from but I want to be in charge of where I’m going. We don’t have a shot if we don’t go through with Artie’s plan. Get access to those files.”

“Mercedes is packing. You guys are leaving.”

“Yah and what a better way to go out then with a bang.”

“I don’t want to be a nullthing. Can I help?”

“Yes, I was hoping you’d want to. Mercedes is working on weaseling out of Wes the system Trent was working on. Apparently Trent is too nervous to talk directly to anyone. I’m trying to get Artie to agree. We talk online under codenames on ‘World of Warcraft’. He seems hesitant right now but I think a few more sessions and I should be able to turn him.

We need you, Brittany, to dance.”

“What? I don’t understand. Kurt said not to do that anymore.”

“Well he didn’t want you to bring attention to the group. That’s what we need now. We need a distraction.”

* * *

 

Sometimes I get so sad and I don’t know where it comes from. A dead corpse in a heart song that rots quiet and alone. And it feels like something is on the edge of breaking. Does this ever go away?

I don’t know if I’m still unable to keep track of time or if time is unstuck but things just keep happening and I can’t locate them. It’s tonight.

It’s already tonight. Sam and Mercedes’ plan. I guess mine too?

I’m really nervous and I want to throw up but I can’t because it’s a secret. I’ve been very good so far at not letting Kurt and Blaine figure it out. If I end up crunched over a toilet, I’m pretty sure they will.

I tiptoe towards the door of Blaine’s place (that’s where we are this week). I am now that one guy from Sam’s video game, ‘Assassin’s Deed’ or something. No one can see me quietly sneak behind the couch where they are watching some television show they hate. I really don’t know why they watch it if all they do is yell about ‘shit’ and ‘drama’ every time.

Sneak sneak sneak sneak. Crouch down it makes me invisible. Hold my breath making my cheeks puff out. Sneaky sneaky sneaks.

“Brittany, we know you’re there. That Mission Impossible act isn’t fooling anyone. Where are you going?”

Crap.

I forgot Kurt has unicorn powers too. He can probably see invisible people.

It’s like I’m being stoned to death (I saw that in a documentary) the way the rock in my chest is pounding against me. They have to be able to hear it cause it’s all I can hear minus the fuzzy humming I always have.

“I’m going dancing.”

And then I pirouette across the floor, open the door and gallop into the night as quick as the child of fairy and starlight.

It’s not a lie--exactly.

My toes barely touch the street before they are gone, swift as Lord Tubbington I vibrate and hover above the rubble and broken glass.

_Brittany lets the fear lure her to its origins. She is oblivious to the frantic sideways shuffle of the people trying to escape her path. She is oblivious to the way the rocks embed themselves up through her weathered ballet flats into feet. She is oblivious to the golden brass strands of hair whipping across her eyes. She is oblivious to the chill and the man-made wind sweeping half-frozen tear stains along the tops of her cheeks. She was blind and cold when she first traveled this route and that is how she will be as muscle memory returns her to the source. And in the end this was always the journey she was destined to take. Her body takes comfort in knowing people often seem to seek their pain, the beginning, in one way or another._

_In the swooping grandness of a winged horse’s entrance, she is there, alone in the bushes outside the hospital waiting for the others. In another tick they are there too. Conversations in silence for all are aware of the gravity, the weight of the risk, and the necessity of it all._

_Tick.  
_

_Brittany is in the lobby. She doesn’t recall getting here but here she is and the beep of the pager fastened to her belt tells her Trent has set up the virus cascade that will take down a majority of the security systems. Sam and Mercedes, looking very not themselves in nursing scrubs, have Artie on a pre-paid phone and must have successfully used his mother’s stolen badges and codes to get in her office. They will have to hack their way through the rest once the initial protection is disabled. Trent’s program will take out everything in the hospital. Someone in I.T. will catch it quickly and reboot it within 30 minutes. They are even more time limited than they have been on past missions. Brittany’s job is to dance. Distract as many away from their computers as possible. Then Wes, who is in the corner chair reading ‘Ladies Home Journal’ while clutching gauze coated in fake blood to his head, will find his way to one of the computers and open the email from Trent that will trigger the virus. Trent spent weeks without sleep developing this complicated code, and he doesn’t believe in God but Brittany is sure he is somewhere praying that it works._  
  
Tick.

_She is dancing. Even as she twirls away from the nurses and security rushing after her, she is home._

_Brittany sends a quick smiley face page to Sam to let them know it’s their turn to spin._

_Tick._

_Brittany is still dancing but she’s outside somehow; a dull pulse coming from her right arm where Wes is tugging her along. Then he has his hands on her shoulders, the heaviness of it solidifying her._

“Brittany. Brittany. We’re done. Snap out of it. You can stop dancing. Brittany!”

_She hasn’t ‘snapped out of it’ but she stops dancing. Stands there and breathes like it’s the only thing she knows how to do. Sometimes it is when the only thing thrumming through her nerves is abstract senses and symbolic brightly colored images and grandiose statements and this overwhelming vagueness._

_Wes removes his hands and Brittany leans forward following their concreteness, tipping over slightly on her toes. He catches her and remembers to link his pinky with hers, hold her until they are someplace safer. Well, as safe as it is possible for a group of rebels and refugees to be._

“Santana, I miss you so much. Please come back to me. This feels like a breakup. Don’t leave me behind Santana.”

“I won’t. I won’t." 

_Brittany feels a gentle flutter of dry lips on her forehead. For a moment she allows herself to believe Santana has returned, but the lower pitch of the voice and the roughness of those lips with the smell of unscented chapstick won’t let her maintain the illusion._

_Sam is the one comforting her. Letting her say those things that don’t make sense without correcting her. Brittany appreciates the gesture, but he’s still not Santana and so the uncertainty remains a stain on the carpet._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing the trend of having bolded lines be Spring Standards lyrics. Can y'all tell I'm a major fan of that band?

_Brittany’s life is a cycle of sleeping and waking, as if she goes some place for a moment and returns only to be filled in on all that she missed. Like she’s never really present for any of the action. Like the Dreams never ended._

_Have they?_

_She’s not completely sure._

“So Trent stopped by.”

“What?! But Trent never leaves his apartment anymore?”

“He did."

“What did he want?"

“He finished analyzing and decoding all the files they got from that last mission. You know, the _big_ one.”

“God I wish they had never done that. None of us are ready to leave yet. They could have gotten themselves killed.”

“We still might be. Trent looked incredibly shaken up. He couldn’t speak. He just stared at me, handed me this manila envelope, mouthed goodbye, and walked off.”

“What do you think he’s going to do? Oh no. You don’t think he’s going to hurt himself do you?”

“I---I don’t know.”

“This is bad. This is really bad.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Please come here. I just need to hold you right now.”

I watch them for what might be hours. Days. Time is relative I think. They want more so I’ll let them have it.

“I’m never saying goodbye to you. Remember that.”

Kurt’s voice tilts up at the end so I can’t tell if that’s a statement or a question. Blaine’s response is to bury his chin further into Kurt’s shoulder and dig his fingers into his back.

I guess I’m not the only one whose words get stuck.

“I. I guess we should read this. Do you want to wait for everyone else?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should read it first so we can process whatever it is that has Trent so scared he came to find us himself.”

“I want to pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“I want to pretend a lot doesn’t exist.”

“Not you though.”

“Never you.”

And in a fly’s breath Kurt has Blaine pressed against the back of the couch, his head hitting the arm with what I’m certain is a painful thump.

I don’t stay to watch though. Not that I haven’t before. I like their porn, it’s pretty hot most of the time. But as I walk back towards the kitchen to the soundtrack of their desperate breathing; it’s just noise, far too intimate noise.

They are scared. No. Scared isn’t a good enough word. Kurt and Blaine are always scared. This is a last ditch attempt to save something; the one thing that isn’t painful. Way more than scared but I can’t figure it out.

My brain feels dark red with purple black edges. Coming in flashes slowly picking up pace, almost imperceptible, so that when you turn around things are much bigger than they were. Bottled bones and toothsaw feet. It even tastes, iron rusted blood and the bitterness of orange juice after brushing your teeth. How am I supposed to put a word to that?

I’ve been Kurt before. Okay, not actually Kurt. That would be ridiculous, people can’t become other people.

I’ve felt this _this_ before and I’ve responded the same way as him.

Far too intimate noise.

_Brittany sits on the cheap plastic coated MDF board countertop, slowly nibbling at the edges of a Twix bar. The chocolate has melted all over her fingers and face leaving soft brown smudges along the ribs of her second-hand dinosaur t-shirt. She hums to herself while she waits for Kurt and Blaine to finish trying to rescue each other (if her cycle is remembering, that’s theirs’). It’s a song of nonsense syllables, words she doesn’t recall knowing, phrases like avant garde poetry._

_‘Sojourn vernacular_

_sojurn sojura jura joan_

_my Olympian Svetlana I loft you on up_

_I cannot at culture lineate nor in I refer the hangover_

_hung up on sojourn sofundi_

_rosamari sinmaseteur_

_mon cheri cheri_

_cheeri cheeri cheerio_

_I forlorn believe you for a doctor’s nothing_

_Nothing my svetana snix_

_komadu du la la_

_lying with men and women forget_

_gotten my fix_

_farcical farness forever_

_elongate eliea eliea_

_elevate mon cheri_

_cheri cheeri cheeri_

_cheerio’_

_Tick._

_Brittany is gathered on the couch with Sam and Mercedes. Kurt and Blaine are pacing the floor in tandem; they haven’t stopped holding hands since the couch moment. She places her head on Sam’s shoulder. She knows something is coming, another one of those epiphany moments, and she needs his physical friendship to keep her here again._

_Tick._

I’m barely breathing. **The air is made of please, please, please.** Kurt has told us the most of it, what was in that manila envelope. I have to repeat it to myself because it’s almost like I never really heard. Kind of like my morning ritual the nighttime edition.

1)    My name is Brittany.

2)    I was used as an experiment.

3)    I don’t know anything about my life before.

4)    They gave me a lot of fake memories and feelings.

5)    ‘New Directions’ is not the only one.

6)    There are all sorts of labs over the world. Run by a company called Rossum.

7)    Everyone keeps saying the words political conspiracy. I don’t know what that means.

8)    Most people know what’s going on. But they don’t care. Or they think it’s fine.

9)    It’s way bigger than we thought.

10) They know about us.

11) This is very very bad.

12) The bad guys always cover their tracks.

13) We have to leave tomorrow or we are dead.

14) Magic does not exist.

15) Santana does not exist.

 

“We have one last thing.”

“Kurt, I really don’t think the situation can get much worse unless you’re about to tell me I’m really Beyonce but have been unaware all this time. Spill.”

“Not all the memories and feelings are fake. One of the papers in the files you snatched was an account of interviews with what the researchers termed, awake actives. These people were used like us except periodically made conscious so that they could recount what they remembered. ‘New Directions’ compiled their accounts and noticed a pattern.

They are worried about something.”

“What?”

“They can’t control everything."

“We have no idea what that means, clarify.”

“The paper titled it residue. No matter how hard ‘New Directions’ has tried, they can’t completely erase the original imprint. Something is always left behind. It can change form, exaggerate traits or fears or strengths, twist them so they are almost unrecognizable. The residue can take the shape of anything from another person to a favorite song to a place. All they know is that it’s something that makes the active feel safe and connected, something ‘New Directions’ doesn’t want and they can’t get rid of it. They’ve tried. The best solution they have is to use the animal control to identify what the residue is, then find ways to prevent the active from engaging with it. Try to break the active’s heightened relationship to the residue.”

“I’m not sure I understand. Does this mean there was something in our Dreams that was the real us, or a form of it at least?"

“That’s what Trent seems to think.”

“Kurt and I agree with the hypothesis. After all, what better way to break someone and gain ultimate control over the human mind, than to destroy their own relationship with themselves? That’s why ‘New Directions’ was so determined to shut it down. If we stayed connected to whatever incarnation of ourselves we were in our Dreams, the part of us they couldn’t wipe away, then there would always be a part of us that was stronger than them; a part of us that could fight back and keep our own selves.”

“That sounds extreme. Are you sure you’re not reading into this too much?”

“Perhaps. But don’t you want to believe there is some part of you that withstood everything, that you could find this again. It’s probably a false form of closure but I’ll take it.”

“Blaine and I are on the same page, you don’t have to be. You can read the documents yourselves if you’d like.”

“No. I want to believe too. Do you know what your, what did they call it? What your residue was?”

“I’m not sure. Blaine thinks his might have been the auditorium at his school.”

“Everything in my dreams was wretched. The one place the monsters and bullies couldn’t find me was when I was singing on that stage. I always felt like I was somebody else when I was performing. Maybe that somebody else was really me.”

“I think my residue was a girl. She was always annoying the hell out of me. I constantly wanted to shove a sock in her mouth or burn those horrid animal print sweaters she wore. She was like the lost gay love child of Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobby.

But she was my friend. She listened when I needed someone to cry to. She didn’t tell me I was psychotic when I showed her the bruises and scars from the demons that lived in my locker.

I hated her sometimes. God, I hated her. Stupid situations kept coming up and she only thought of herself. She’d forget me for her ambitions, leave me bleeding from the mouth in the dumpster.”

“This is all too complicated for me. I wasn’t even human in my Dreams! It took me months to stop believing in community tree bonding and now I get this news. How the hell is this supposed to work? Fuck!”

“Calm down Sam.”

“No! I will not calm down. What Artie said half a year ago. No! I’m going to be angry! Look at everything they took from us and screwed with us. How are any of us supposed to have lives? How are any of us supposed to be human? We were just empty dolls for them to shove shit in and now all I have left is this shit. It’s all shit! I’m shit!”

Sam is so upset his shoulder is rattling and it’s not comfortable to keep my head there.

“No Sam, you’re not a nullthing.”

“Yes! Yes I am! We all are. That’s what they made us and I’m not going to keep pretending any different.”

_Tick._

I must have started crying because everyone is fretting over me.

“No, no Brittany I’m sorry. That’s not true. I’m just upset. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I wish they’d stop treating me like a child. I’m not that stupid. Sam just takes back what he said because I’m crying. He still believes it though. I think I might too even if I don’t want to. My mind is shit and if that’s all I am, I’m shit too.

The hands on my arms have stopped moving. The group is staring at me as if—did I just say that last bit out loud?

_Tick._

_Sam is out the door without even slamming it behind him.  Kurt and Blaine are holding back Mercedes from running after him._

“Mercedes we can’t stop him. If you follow him you’ll get yourself in trouble. All of us are in danger. We need to leave now!”

“Let me go you fools! I have to get him. Talk some sense into that stupid ass white boy.”

“You can’t! It’s too late. We don’t even have time to pack now. His reckless behavior has cut our already short timeline down. Don’t you understand? If any of us have a chance, if anyone still stuck under Rossum or ‘New Directions’ has a chance, we have to go NOW!”

“But Sam’s—”

_Brittany misses the rest of the argument. She has already made like a shadow and slipped past, out the door barefoot into the grime coated city snow. She moves with motive. Buy Sam time. Buy Sam’s life--if she can._

_The ice and tension in the breeze cut off the circulation. Brittany is strangled numb but she knows what she needs to do. She needs to do what she does best. She needs to dance. She needs to let that burn of acid in her tendons drag her back, remind her of what she’s been trying to forget._

_She is not shit._

_She is not shit._

 

_She is Santana._


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, bolded lines are Spring Standard's lyrics. Did you sense that as a theme?
> 
> Also, yay this is the end! Sorry it took so long to upload, school is not productive to fanfiction.

**Memory #11:**

Beautiful is such an inadequate word to describe the radiance and girlish, yet completely grown-up, energy that is this woman below me. Her world is so special; it’s a blessing every time she allows me permission to visit. 

Oh god that sounds wanky. 

Get your mind out of the fucking gutter Santana. You’re trying to be poetic and shit.

But seriously, I am so grateful. Brittany is trusting. She believes. And that is incredibly hard jazz to do when the world is literally designed to rip your heart out like some supernatural pre-teen novel kind of drivel that makes you want to gouge your eyes out just for glancing at the sparkly cover. 

Cynical I am and yet here she is; believing in me so much more than I deserve.

Which makes me feel guilty as hell. Fun I know. Tis the vicious reality of one, Santana Lopez, happiness racks her with guilt, thus destroying the happiness that started the cycle in the first place.

Oh come on Santana, you are not a soap opera that’s outlasted its time stuck with all its sucktastic actors and weeping middle-aged housewives who don’t understand the purpose of lip liner. Snap the fuck out of it.

Although the soft lighting does have its benefits with that whole romanticized porn look thing going for it.

Now that I think about it, that’s a good way to describe Brittany.

Ugh! Holy Jesus on a cross, I can’t seem to remove the porn angle from this story. Now don’t get me wrong, Brittany is completely and utterly porn material. I have spent many a night with lavender scented bath oils and a picture of her twirling in that slutty God-given cheerleading skirt. But right now I am trying to be honest with myself and that means stick to the sugary sweet sentimentality.

Brittany looks like she’s perpetually bathed in soft lighting because she has no harsh edges and she appears as if she doesn’t belong here, not really. Someone plucked her out of a fairytale and dropped her down on this purgatory. That yellow white glow emanating from the golden halo that is her gorgeous hair, is just an external reminder to the rest of us that she is something else, something ethereal, something so so far _more_.

Brings back memories of when I met her. Truth be told I cannot remember a fucking thing from before I bumped into her in the hallway that day. I don’t really want to though. It’s kind of romantic in a creepy stalkeresque way that my existence seems tethered to hers.

My God, or whatever fucking deity you prefer, I am really bad at staying on topic here. Plus it’s getting quite difficult to remain using whatever bastardization of poetry I’m attempting for with Brittany touching me like this.

As I said, she is the definition of porn. Her with her dancer athleticism arching her back off the dew stained grass clearing we found by sheer miracle and want, right in the middle of her favorite “forest.” It’s like 30 birch trees behind some rich dude’s house but she calls it her Little Lothlorien, whatever that means.

The early fall scent like dirt and sunshine steaming off the unexpectedly feather soft grass perfectly complementing the homespun gold leaves and crackle of peeling white paper bark, are challenging me to believe Brittany when she says there is ancient Mother Earth magic hidden in the trees. I don’t want to; it sounds pathetically sappy, but that’s a battle I’m going lose.

Especially since hidden Mother Earth magic is the only possible way to explain my body’s reaction when Brittany’s fingers curve up from below my skirt to carve burnt circles into the crease at the top of my thigh. Thank the President of the United States of America I wore my good-ass skirt today with no panties. Sure I had to deal with a couple of un-classy douche acts trying to cop a peek, but all I have to do is call the lard-dicks out and muss my hair up a bit and they go crying home to their sad excuses for mothers screaming “Bitch!” Totally worth it for the attention it gets me from Britts.

Brittany’s fingers trail over and dip a little deeper and fuck it, this romantic thinking shit has got to end.

An intake of breath and her butter soft lips are on mine, tasting perfectly like cherry chapstick and the residue of Twix. When the kiss releases Brittany is staring at me in that way that makes me uneasy. Her eyes get all big and glass over because she’s trying not to blink. If she wasn’t so pretty it would probably be creepy. Britts and I have this weird psychological mumbo jumbo thing though so I know that look is her willing me to listen to her.

God, she’s always so afraid of not being heard. I hope I never fail her.

Britt opens her mouth but closes it again. She does this like 5 times. Kind of looks like some sort of rainbow fish. She’s word stuck so I make sure to wait it out without interrupting.

When she finally speaks her fingers have stilled and the voice comes out a melodic whisper.

“ **I know you’ve had your hurt and you keep it hidden beneath your sleeves.”**

Shit. How does she do that? She always knows the thing to say. I wasn’t even being surface level angsty but Brittany somehow can see past all the bullshit I didn’t even know was buried there. Finds her way into the last little unexplored corner of my mind and just tugs it out as easy as ripping off a Band-Aid.

“I love you.”

Double shit! I rush to kiss her and swallow away the words I just said. I’ve told her I love her before, but always in the pseudo-vein of friendship, or caked in layers of ambiguity and fear. This was the first time I really, believingly meant it. And I wasn’t scared.

Of course I’m scared now, post fact. My heart is beating so fucking hard it’s traveling through my entire body; the pulses making me clang our teeth together through the kiss.

Brittany grabs a hold of my shoulders in a full-armed choking type of hug and flips us over so my back is pressed into the warm soil by the weight of her hips on mine. She sensed my solid need for comfort. She responded accordingly, allowing herself to become heavy and tangible on top of me in order to ease my perpetual fear that she will float away, disappear in the air that becomes her person. Brittany presses the flat of her palms into my collarbones; the pressure of them bruising as she leans forward to lick the tears, cat-like, off my face. 

I hear it in my head before her song reaches my ears,

**“I’m bending backwards for you honey. I’ll be the one who holds your sad soul tight. I’ll find a way to make things funny. They’ll be nothing left of me but it’s alright.”**

And yah, Britt is talking in riddles like song lyrics and maybe it’s cliché to be moved by it but it’s just so fucking beautiful.

 

She is just so fucking beautiful.

* * *

 

Sam is nowhere to be found. I really hope he hasn’t vanished away into null-thing. I’m crouched quietly behind our bushes, the scratchy needle ones we always used for hiding before. Sam’s not here so I know he has stopped caring about being safe and I’m really starting to get worried. Panicky throw-up kind of worry.

But before I have too much time to dawdle on that I hear the walls breaking down. Maybe the screaming and the mess sound louder out here in the cold. Someone told me that once. I think it was Santana? My own head? That doesn’t make sense. You can’t tell yourself things you didn’t already know right? But that’s all Santana was, something new. Or was that just me again, like they said? Rearranged into something unknowable? Nothing I think makes sense and I don’t have time to focus on it. I can see someone running out of the building.

It’s Sam! He made it! He’s carrying, I can’t tell what it is. Just looks like useless wires and electronic bits.

No! There is a crowd of people in different colored uniforms rushing out of the hospital too. The white ones scare me the most. Sam’s screaming in that strange language of his, throwing pieces of whatever he has back at them. He gives up; crashes it all to the ground and runs back towards the crowd. I never knew Sam could be so violent, or hit people like that. He’s not my Sam anymore which I find scarier than the people chasing him and hitting back.

I should do something. That’s why I followed him. Right? But once again I am stuck like my words and my head, just behind these bushes with the points pricking into my palms as I spread them apart so I may see better.

 

There is silence.

Silence only happens when it’s proceeded by something really really unbearably loud. So loud that the only thing that can follow is the silence.

I open my eyes which I wasn’t even aware of scrunching closed, tight as a lock. Sam is on the ground. My Sam is on the ground with darkness climbing through his Star Wars t-shirt while a man in blue, or black, I cannot tell with the nighttime, stands staring at the gun in his hand as if it’s not his. Someone else put it there and his time is stretching. My time is stretching too, like the bands I use to tie my hair up. It’s slow and tight and waiting to give.

And I am too late to do anything. I came to save Sam and I didn’t.

No this is a lie. I can do something. I can do what I came to do, which was dance. I’ll give Sam and all the others that last effort.

So I push myself out from the bushes and scream. I’m not actually sure what I am shouting but I don’t think that matters as long as I’m heard, which I am because all the heads turn towards me. Audience engaged.

The body knows what to do.

_She is oblivious to the way the stars shine unusually bright given the city lights. Each surrounded by a ring of darkened sky. A light collapsing the center of a black hole. Most anyone would make a metaphor of this. Brittany just keeps dancing. So fast that she outruns time itself. The clocks ungluing from the constant tick tick tick of the tick tick tick. Her body has quite literally become the physical incarnation of the poetry she dreams. The limbs sink upwards and inwards inside of herself. The messy tangle of synaptic connections weaving around the messy tangle of skin and muscle and bone. Fusion, and it’s more beautiful, more magical, than anything Brittany has ever seen._

_She knows this is how it ends._

_No. Brittany rejects that. Endings are incomplete._

I reject that. If something I’ve yet to understand is coming, let it. But it has to be in my own way. I will make that true. I am used to not understanding. I understand how to not understand. So I reject endings. This is not an ending. Endings are incomplete.

I can see the people coming out of the corner of my eyes as I spin but I will not run. Spinning and kicking and leaps. This is mine.

I feel their hands grasping for my arms pulling and tearing at my seams. Screams rip up to my shoulders and I am on the icy pavement surrounded by the shrieks.

As the men and women in ghostly white uniforms, far too clean, gather the leftover folds of me up, I think of only one thing.

I love Santana. Santana is mine.

 

I love Santana. And it’s all too obvious now but when I love Santana it means I love myself. When my body is taken too, I will always have that.


End file.
